Quotes & Sayings About Being Critical Of Yourself

We need to learn to "read with a comb" - that is, developing a value system that gives us the ability to be critical of what we study. Here the word critical does not mean approaching our studies with a negative attitude. It means being cautious and discerning. — R.C. Sproul

Being self-critical is good; being self-hating is destructive. There's a very fine line there somewhere, and I walk it carefully. — Daniel Radcliffe

Today you're in a hospital. Or at least this morning. This hour. This minute. Where you'll be three minutes from now is anyone's guess. You've begun to notice, though, that, bit by bit the sense of being outside yourself has diminished with each passing day. A critical mass is reached, and now your soul collapses in upon itself.
You're back inside the vessel of your body.
Just one. Just you. Just an individual.
Me. — Neal Shusterman

Toronto was a great place to work, a fun place to work. People were so hockey-oriented, hockey-minded, without being too critical. In Montreal, they got downright nasty sometimes. — Pat Burns

A third variety of drama ... begins as tragedy with scraps of fun in it ... and ends in comedy without mirth in it, the place of mirth being taken by a more or less bitter and critical irony. — George Bernard Shaw

I was critical of the Israeli government, however, for not being prepared for the move. One does not uproot thousands of people without planning in advance what will be done with them. This was a political and human error in which the government functioned poorly. — Norman Lamm

He hovered, as it were, on the fringes of both the scientific and the classical worlds, making, apparently, no deep impression on either. Perhaps the characteristics that he inherited from D'Arcy the Elder partly accounted for this. Gifted, volatile, impulsive, and individual, neither could suffer a fool gladly, and they spoke their minds freely when occasion demanded and sometimes when it did not. They both went their own way; they would not 'run with the pack'; they despised the instinct that leads men to say what others say because it is easier, or do as others do for fear of being thought different. Alike in demanding the highest standard of integrity in behaviour and work they spared no man who was slovenly in either; critical of their own achievements they were equally so of other men's. — Ruth D'Arcy Thompson

Do you know what the worst thing about literature is? . What? I said. That you end up being friends with writers. And friendship, treasure though it may be, destroys your critical sense. Once, said Don Pancracio, Monteforte Toledo dropped this riddle in my lap: a poet is lost in a city on the verge of collapse, with no money, or friends, or anyone to turn to. And of course, he neither wants nor plans to turn to anyone. For several days he roams the city and the country, eating nothing, or eating scraps. He's even stopped writing. Or he writes in his head: in other words, he hallucinates. All signs point to an imminent death. His drastic disappearance foreshadows it. And yet the poet doesn't die. — Roberto Bolano

For someone who is starting out on developing their critical skills, just being aware of its existence is great: it can make the difference between trying to write a story around a cliche or an original idea, and better still, studying it can eventually clue you in on how to breathe new life into tired tropes. — Charles Stross

Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep. It's always in the middle of the night, or you're half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away. You turn on the lights and the cockroaches run away. You can never grasp them ... — John Lennon

You can hit a home run. If you are honest, you'll know when it's perfect because at that critical moment of connection, there was no sense of being there. That is perfect play. There is no self involved. — Frederick Lenz

Because there's such a long tradition of the arts being very prominent and very varied in Cuban culture and society, people do use the art world as a space for critical reflection and people look to it for that. — Rachael Price

I think the most critical needs of the African-American communities aren't being addressed primarily because of decisions being made by Republican Congressional leaders. — Melissa Harris-Perry

I think most gypsies all over the world are used to being not really welcome and always on the run, expecting people to not like them and to be critical. — Noomi Rapace

What a joke, coming from a woman who worked for the fashion industry. Really. Starving yourself to fit into a size zero - why did that size even exist? Zero referred to the absence of something, but what did it mean in terms of a model's measurements? Her fat? Or her presence? How much could you cut away before the person herself vanished? It was hypocritical, that's what it was. I said as much, adding, If you're so keen on me being healthy then you should have no problem accepting me for the way I am. That's what's healthy, Mom. Not being focused on all this freaky weight-loss stuff. — Nenia Campbell

The second part of it, which I think is really critical, is understanding that being creative means that you have to sell your ideas. — Jocelyn K. Glei

I divide criticism into two categories - one coming from those who understand music, who are worthy of being critical because they are knowledgeable about what they are saying; and then there is another category of people who would criticise you anyway, whether your work is good or bad. — A.R. Rahman

...when we cease asking questions, when we stop being self-critical, and when we no longer engage with others, then we surrender our ability to grow--to progress. Let's begin the conversation. — Mehdi Ghafourifar

I learned the difference between critical thinking and being just plain critical. — Sarah Bessey

That's when the great stuff happens, when you're not checking yourself all the time, being critical of yourself and what other people are doing. — Carol Kane

Almost every Bible conference majors on today's Church being like the Ephesian Church. We are told that, despite our sin and carnality, we are seated with Him. Alas, what a lie! We are Ephesians all right; but, as the Ephesian Church in the Revelation, we have 'left our first love!' We appease sin - but do not oppose it. To such a cold, carnal, critical, care-cowed Church, this lax, loose, lustful, licentious age will never capitulate. Let us stop looking for scapegoats. The fault in declining morality is not radio or television. The whole blame for the present international degeneration and corruption lies at the door of the Church! — Leonard Ravenhill

If people talk about you, being jealous, critical, and trying to make you look bad, don't let that change you. You don't need their approval when you have God's approval. — Joel Osteen

As I get, I give. Giving as you get is critical. It has everything to do with being happy for yourself, and making others happy is the cause of making yourself happy, and it's the cycle of giving and getting. — Russell Simmons

Being overly critical of yourself is like having a relentless, inescapable bully who follows you everywhere you go and abuses you. — Bryant McGill

It is easy enough to say, Be true to your values. But what if your values are irrational? Or what if the virtues you have committed yourself to are so much against human nature that they cannot be practiced consistently? Be careful of what you accept as your code of morality. Think carefully about whether its tenets serve your life and well being. Exercise critical judgment. Realize how much is at stake-your life, your happiness, your self-esteem. — Nathaniel Branden

It is important you understand how fear affects you and how it drives human behavior so you can start to see situations and people accurately and respond more appropriately. When someone is behaving badly, attacking you, or being defensive, critical, or judgmental, it is not really about you. Fear is the real reason people behave badly. Their fears make them selfish, defensive, mean, and grouchy. Every time someone is behaving badly, step back and ask yourself, "What is this person afraid of? What fear inside me is driving my reaction to their attack? What am I afraid of?"
When you can accurately see the fear behind their behavior, and yours, you will see the situation for what it really is. — Kimberly Giles

I am critical of myself like everyone else. You go to a movie theater and you are forty feet high. I had bad skin as a teenager and I am a shy person, but I think I am in the perfect business to fight my insecurities. You have to learn to love yourself and say 'I am pretty cool' instead of being so critical. You can easily fall into the trap of doing that. — Chris Pine

Critical thinking does seem a superior sort of thinking because it seems as though the critic is actually going beyond the scope of what is being criticized in order to criticize it. That is only rarely a true assumption because, most often, the critic will seize on some little aspect that he or she understands and tackle only that. — Edward De Bono

It is critical to your family's well being and to your kids' self-esteem that you like (not just love) your youngsters. What does "like" mean? Here's an example. It's a Saturday and you're home by yourself for a few hours - a rare occurrence! Everyone has gone out. You're listening to some music and just puttering around. You hear a noise outside and look out to see a car pulling up in the driveway. One of your kids gets out and heads for the front door. How do you feel in your gut right at that moment? If it's "Oh no, the fun's over!" that may not be like. If it's "Oh good, I've got some company!" that's more like like. Liking your children and having a good relationship with them is important for lots of reasons. The most important reason, though, may be that it's simply more fun. Kids are naturally cute and enjoyable a lot of the time, and you want to take advantage of that valuable quality. And they only grow up with you once. — Thomas W. Phelan

Just as music is a natural way to empathy, music can also be a way to open you to compassion. Have you ever felt your inner strings being tugged when a musical score is introduced at a critical point in a movie, depicting the suffering of someone else? Charities do well when they are able to shortcut to our compassion with the right music in their advertisements. They do well by getting you to resonate to their tune, and then ask you to own their problems with them. — Will Jelbert

There is a way to support the art and to allow and encourage the art to flourish while being critical. In fact, I find in teaching that self-critique is one of the best ways to have your art grow, but if you start tearing yourself down then, it's not going to go anywhere. I feel the same about critics. I feel that's happening all too often. — Jennifer Tipton

Intellectual work is essentially a lonely process, and if you can find a way of doing something so that you're in company without being disturbed, that, for me, is the critical thing. I often get to feel isolated so often if I'm sitting either where there aren't people or isn't a view. — Whitfield Diffie

Primary and especially secondary education is extremely important in preventing trafficking, it allows children to develop critical thinking skills to be able to defend themselves from traffickers and to have the skills that will enable them to have gainful employment to be able to support their families in other ways than being sexually exploited. — Mira Sorvino

The nature of how we are as human beings is that we're much more interested in being critical rather than praising something. — Ellie Goulding

There can be no relation more strange, more critical, than that between two beings who know each other only with their eyes, who meet daily, yes, even hourly, eye each other with a fixed regard, and yet by some whim or freak of convention feel constrained to act like strangers. Uneasiness rules between them, unslaked curiosity, a hysterical desire to give rein to their suppressed impulse to recognize and address each other; even, actually, a sort of strained but mutual regard. For one human being instinctively feels respect and love for another human being so long as he does not know him well enough to judge him; and that he does not, the craving he feels is evidence. — Thomas Mann

In Syria, once, at the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had an idea of getting one made like it; and then, after he was done figuring on it as an article of apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article of diet. He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had never tasted anything as good as — Mark Twain

Those who are critical don't like being criticized, and those who are insensitive have a deficiency in their senses. — Suzy Kassem

I believe that the one thing that has come out of this
extraordinary
meeting this morning is an awareness that we have, perhaps, been careless about the critical relationship between human and pegasus, careless in our resignation that no better bond than what we are accustomed to can exist. The king agrees with you that his daughter and Lrrianay's son suggest a different way. But the king's view, and indeed hope, for that way is diametrically opposed to your own. Bring what the histories can tell us both, and the councils will decide whose concept of the way forward has more merit.
The king is prepared to consider the possibility that your outburst arose from a dedication to the well-being of our country too profound for restraint; but he is only barely prepared so to consider it. You may leave us. Now. — Robin McKinley

I was a very senior minister in the Howard government and I sat around this particular table [in the prime ministerial office] in many discussions. The difference between being a senior minister and the prime minister is that ultimately the buck does stop with the prime minister and in the end the prime minister has to make those critical judgement calls and that's the big difference. — Tony Abbott

I'm a practicing Zen Buddhist and I'm influenced by my readings in that tradition, such as the notion that everyone is born a perfect being and we spend most of our lives with a clouded vision trying to realize our perfection, he says. At critical moments in the book, T.S. registers his inkling of this realization. When he makes his maps, it feels like taking down dictation from the universe. — Reif Larsen

Every cell in your body, she said, was a quark, a sort of vibrating string. And through their thoughts and intentions, human beings had an almost magnetic power to attract similar strings out in the universe. As the number and intensity of these attracted strings build, a critical mass is reached and the want, whatever that may be, comes into being. Most of us are more powerful than we know. We are each in charge of our own vibrating energy. — Karen McQuestion

There will always be some who dilute the gospel to attract a crowd, but not everyone who wants to be contemporary does that. You can tell those who do because they leave out critical parts of the message, such as the uniqueness of Christ, that he's the only way, the fact that we are saved by grace through faith, or the reality of heaven and hell. Those who compromise on nonnegotiables think they're being relevant, but they become irrelevant because they have nothing to offer. Their message becomes increasingly weak and void of the power to transform people's lives. — Leon Fontaine

The flip side of this is that they will not tolerate criticism and can be scathing of anyone who criticizes them. They will often attack and belittle the person who is being critical, instead of dealing with the points the person is making. They do this usually because they have no defence against the criticism, they have been found out. So it's easier to destroy the reputation of the critical person instead. — David McDermott

Local brands evoke national pride, are seen as less profit-oriented, and are often formed on deep local insights. But quality worries persist, innovation is questioned, the information can be woefully inadequate, they are sometimes seen to be opaque and their advertising is clearly recognised as not being of a global standard. For local brands, quality, innovation and transparency are critical hills to climb. — Miles Young

If you should rise from Nowhere up to Somewhere,
From being No one up to being Someone,
Be sure to keep repeating to yourself
You owe it to an arbitrary god
Whose mercy to you rather than to others
Won't bear to critical examination.
Stay unassuming. If for lack of license
To wear the uniform of who you are,
You should be tempted to make up for it
In a subordinationg look or toe,
Beware of coming too much to the surface
And using for apparel hat was meant
To be the curtain of the inmost soul. — Robert Frost

In so far as the culture industry arouses a feeling of well-being that the world is precisely in that order suggested by the culture industry, the substitute gratification which it prepares for human beings cheats them out of the same happiness which it deceitfully projects. — Theodor W. Adorno

In every interview I've got to explain something about being white but still being into hip hop. It's gone way beyond the musical aspect of the business. And I'm as critical about music as everybody else is. — Brian Austin Green

I think the roots of this antagonism to science run very deep. They're ancient. We see them in Genesis, this first story, this founding myth of ours, in which the first humans are doomed and cursed eternally for asking a question, for partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It's puzzling that Eden is synonymous with paradise when, if you think about it at all, it's more like a maximum-security prison with twenty-four hour surveillance. It's a horrible place. Adam and Eve have no childhood. They awaken full-grown. What is a human being without a childhood? Our long childhood is a critical feature of our species. It differentiates us, to a degree, from most other species. We take a longer time to mature. We depend upon these formative years and the social fabric to learn many of the things we need to know. — Ann Druyan

The security of computers and the Internet is a horrible and dangerous mess. Every week we hear about breaches of databases of Social Security numbers and financial information and health records, and about critical infrastructure being insecure. — Matt Blaze

Earning trust and being trustworthy constantly is critical to the survival of your brand — Bernard Kelvin Clive

Being a successful CEO, where I've driven a bottom line, assembled teams, driven results, that's a critical benefit to running the state government. — Bruce Rauner

If your organization has been in operation any length of time, you have a brand. The question is whether your current brand helps or hinders your mission. Do you know how you are being perceived by your community? It does not matter how good a job you are actually doing if the public's perception does not reflect such knowledge, which is why it is critical that a nonprofit stay in tune with how people outside of its organization view it. Here are some suggestions to help you assess your current public image. — Sunny Fader