Critical Quotes

Knowing themselves to be faultless, they make it their mission to detect the myriad faults in others, against which they wage incessant tongue.

Heron Carvic

Careful evaluation of information that is portrayed as fact is critical.

Steven Redhead

Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence, which is ‘violence that is exercised upon a social agent with his or her complicity’...provides an explanation of how social inequalities can continue largely unabated. Within this perspective, individual subjects are subjected to various forms of violence, such as being treated unfairly or denied resources, or are limited in their social mobility and aspirations, but they do not tend to see it that way; rather it is misrecognised by individual subjects as the natural order of things. Gender domination in the patriarchal family is an example of symbolic violence in operation. Through habitus formation in this context, women were often confined emotionally, socially, economically and physically and the perception that women were inferior to men in the home and more generally in society was perpetuated. Women’s misrecognition of this violence as ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ gendered relations in the world led to their being complicit in reinscribing through their daily practices, their own domination.

kerry H Robinson

...so individuals have their flesh cut and pulled, surgery companies proclaim it as an empowering choice, and the stifling cultural ideals about women's appearance are left unscathed

Kat Banyard

Natural science is founded on minute critical views of the general order of events taking place upon our globe, corrected, enlarged, or exalted by experiments, in which the agents concerned are placed under new circumstances, and their diversified properties separately examined. The body of natural science, then, consists of facts; is analogy,—the relation of resemblance of facts by which its different parts are connected, arranged, and employed, either for popular use, or for new speculative improvements.

Humphry Davy

It’s not just all physicalI’m the type who will get oh so critical

Tegan Quin

Without critical work, political awareness is likely to remain superficial and rhetorical.

Carter Heyward

It is much better to be addicted to the Word of God than to be in a critical condition because you didn’t pray

Sunday Adelaja

When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself

Earl Nightingale

Hypercritical, Shaming ParentsHypercritical and shaming parents send the same message to their children as perfectionistic parents do - that they are never good enough. Parents often deliberately shame their children into minding them without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on a child's sense of self. Statements such as "You should be ashamed of yourself" or "Shame on you" are obvious examples. Yet these types of overtly shaming statements are actually easier for the child to defend against than are more subtle forms of shaming, such as contempt, humiliation, and public shaming.There are many ways that parents shame their children. These include belittling, blaming, contempt, humiliation, and disabling expectations.-BELITTLING. Comments such as "You're too old to want to be held" or "You're just a cry-baby" are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his or her child and another, such as "Why can't you act like Jenny? See how she sits quietly while her mother is talking," it is not only humiliating but teaches a child to always compare himself or herself with peers and find himself or herself deficient by comparison.-BLAMING. When a child makes a mistake, such as breaking a vase while rough-housing, he or she needs to take responsibility. But many parents go way beyond teaching a lesson by blaming and berating the child: "You stupid idiot! Do you think money grows on trees? I don't have money to buy new vases!" The only thing this accomplishes is shaming the child to such an extent that he or she cannot find a way to walk away from the situation with his or her head held high.-CONTEMPT. Expressions of disgust or contempt communicate absolute rejection. The look of contempt (often a sneer or a raised upper lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can make him or her feel disgusting or offensive. When I was a child, my mother had an extremely negative attitude toward me. Much of the time she either looked at me with the kind of expectant expression that said, "What are you up to now?" or with a look of disapproval or disgust over what I had already done. These looks were extremely shaming to me, causing me to feel that there was something terribly wrong with me.-HUMILIATION. There are many ways a parent can humiliate a child, such as making him or her wear clothes that have become dirty. But as Gershen Kaufman stated in his book Shame: The Power of Caring, "There is no more humiliating experience than to have another person who is clearly the stronger and more powerful take advantage of that power and give us a beating." I can personally attest to this. In addition to shaming me with her contemptuous looks, my mother often punished me by hitting me with the branch of a tree, and she often did this outside, in front of the neighbors. The humiliation I felt was like a deep wound to my soul.-DISABLING EXPECTATIONS. Parents who have an inordinate need to have their child excel at a particular activity or skill are likely to behave in ways that pressure the child to do more and more. According to Kaufman, when a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he or she often experiences a binding self-consciousness. This self-consciousness - the painful watching of oneself - is very disabling. When something is expected of us in this way, attaining the goal is made harder, if not impossible.Yet another way that parents induce shame in their children is by communicating to them that they are a disappointment to them. Such messages as "I can't believe you could do such a thing" or "I am deeply disappointed in you" accompanied by a disapproving tone of voice and facial expression can crush a child's spirit.

Beverly Engel

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 critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.

Nolan Bushnell

ultimately, the long-term goal is to have a critically informed public vote out of office representatives that are sacrificing children to the corporate bottom line with prepackaged teacher-proof curricula, standardized tests, and accountability schemes.

Pepi Leistyna

It's critical to God that we think about how we live, how we spend the present time with which we're gifted each day.

Craig Groeschel

I did say that to deny the existence of evil spirits, or to deny the existence of the devil, is to deny the truth of the New Testament; and that to deny the existence of these imps of darkness is to contradict the words of Jesus Christ.I did say that if we give up the belief in devils we must give up the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments, and we must give up the divinity of Christ. Upon that declaration I stand, because if devils do not exist, then Jesus Christ was mistaken, or we have not in the New Testament a true account of what he said and of what he pretended to do.If the New Testament gives a true account of his words and pretended actions, then he did claim to cast out devils. That was his principal business. That was his certificate of divinity, casting out devils. That authenticated his mission and proved that he was superior to the hosts of darkness.Now, take the devil out of the New Testament, and you also take the veracity of Christ; with that veracity you take the divinity; with that divinity you take the atonement, and when you take the atonement, the great fabric known as Christianity becomes a shapeless ruin.The Christians now claim that Jesus was God. If he was God, of course the devil knew that fact, and yet, according to this account, the devil took the omnipotent God and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to induce him to dash himself against the earth…Think of it! The devil – the prince of sharpers – the king of cunning – the master of finesse, trying to bribe God with a grain of sand that belonged to God!Casting out devils was a certificate of divinity.Is there in all the religious literature of the world anything more grossly absurd than this?These devils, according to the Bible, were of various kinds – some could speak and hear, others were deaf and dumb. All could not be cast out in the same way. The deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal with. St. Mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to Christ. The boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over which the disciples had no control. “Jesus said unto the spirit: ‘Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him.’” Whereupon, the deaf spirit (having heard what was said) cried out (being dumb) and immediately vacated the premises.The ease with which Christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him privately why they could not cast that spirit out. To whom he replied: “This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting.” Is there a Christian in the whole world who would believe such a story if found in any other book?The trouble is, these pious people shut up their reason, and then open their Bible.

Robert G. Ingersoll

How often it is that we set ourselves in the high seat, judging others, not having read their book but merely having glimpsed the cover.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Learn to brush off criticism as easily as you brush aside hollow compliments.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Be warned: A person content to sit with you and criticize others will speak critically of you out of earshot.

Richelle E. Goodrich

I'll never understand ninety-nine percent of humanity. - Enoch

Ransom Riggs

Beware of those who speak negatively about everything and everybody. A negative person will never say a positive thing about you.

Suzy Kassem

Judging others is too often escapism dressed in the garb of righteous indignation, whereby I dutifully point out in others that which I probably should be pointing out in myself.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

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

Suzy Kassem

Speak truth even if you be aloneFor truth hath no friend but itselfKhoiSan Book of Wisdom

rassool jibraeel snyman

Dr. Morris believes, and I strongly agree, that couples are most likely to bond securely when they have not rushed the dating experience. Time is the critical ingredient.

James C. Dobson

As your consciousness, refinement and pureness of heart expands you will become less judgmental, less corrective, less reactive, less black-and-white, less critical, less apt to blame and less tormented by others and their faults and views.

Bryant McGill

True resistance begins with people confronting pain... and wanting to do something to change it.

Bell Hooks

Information had become a critical tool that you can use to raise your bar across every barrier towards excellence. Deny this fact and maintain your bar wherever it was without even a millimeter lift.

Israelmore Ayivor

One of the critical factors that make people’s dreams become nightmares is that they don’t know there is a cost to be paid!

Israelmore Ayivor

Your inability to do what you are noted for doing is a critical step to wading off your past glories of excellence!

Israelmore Ayivor

The hope that fuels the pursuit of endless economic growth – that billions of consumers in India & China will one day enjoy the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans – is as absurd & dangerous a fantasy as anything dreamt up by Al-Qaeda. It condemns the global environment to early destruction & looks set to create reservoirs of nihilistic rage & disappointment among hundreds of millions of have-nots – the bitter outcome of the universal triumph of Western Modernity, which turns the revenge of the East into something darkly ambiguous, and all its victories truly Pyrrhic.

Pankaj Mishra

For a scientist must indeed be freely imaginative and yet skeptical, creative and yet a critic. There is a sense in which he must be free, but another in which his thought must be very precisely regimented; there is poetry in science, but also a lot of bookkeeping.

Peter Medawar

If you are afraid of the critics you will never write a word

Bangambiki Habyarimana

We grow old judging othersAnd ourselvesUntil life humbles usAnd makes scared children of usLonging to hold another’s handTo hear their kind words And witness their kind deeds done on our behalf.But like children,We sabotage everythingFor nothing satisfies usUntil life crumbles usAnd we are no more.

Kamand Kojouri

It is important for the children of God to know their active civil position in critical times in their country

Sunday Adelaja

Distance gives a clearer view. You can't see the facade of a building while staying inside.

Michael Bassey Johnson

Scientific advancement carries risk,” Kohler argued. “It always has. Space programs, genetic research, medicine—they all make mistakes. Science needs to survive its own blunders, at any cost. For everyone’s sake.”Vittoria was amazed at Kohler’s ability to weigh moral issues with scientific detachment. His intellect seemed to be the product of an icy divorce from his inner spirit. “You think CERN is so critical to the earth’s future that we should be immune from moral responsibility?

Dan Brown

There is a strange intangible place on the outside edges of the human mind. It hangs there like a constant witness. It judges a person's every move, every thought and every action. Some people think it is “big brother” or God, but it is just a critical place inside the person’s own mind that judges and condemns. It is the very place where we judge ourselves when we cross Rainbow Bridge into Heaven.

Kate McGahan

When we all play our part the world will run as designed. Do your part and do it now!

TemitOpe Ibrahim

I won’t desecrate beauty with cynicism anymore. I won’t confuse critical thinking with a critical spirit, and I will practice, painfully, over and over, patience and peace until my gentle answers turn away even my own wrath.

Sarah Bessey

People who always want to be at convenient places won’t make a change at controversial places.

Israelmore Ayivor

In a patriarchal society, one of the most important functions of the institution of the family is to make feel like a somebody whenever he is in his own yard a man who is a nobody whenever he is in his employer’s yard.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

If we had to earn our age by thinking for ourselves at least once a year, only a handful of people would reach adulthood.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The only problem that ever really seems to bother empire builders is bureaucracy. Before a new colony on the frontier could be founded, the Senate and Triumvirate would have to pass the plan. Factors influencing the High Lords decision would include, among others, the number of people needed to found the colony and whether this would result in any significant population shift. Another, more critical factor would be whether Tactical Defense could spare the ships or the manpower to patrol the area.

Christina Engela

People who achieve marvelously in critical challenges are commended than people who achieve same things on the silver platter.

Israelmore Ayivor

Women are too critical of themselves

Sunday Adelaja

No churchmen, I notice. Of course not. What use have they for a world without irrational fear?

Jonathan L. Howard

Beware of those who criticize you when you deserve some praise for an achievement, for it is they who secretly desire to be worshiped.

Suzy Kassem

Thus, by science I mean, first of all, a worldview giving primacy to reason and observation and a methodology aimed at acquiring accurate knowledge of the natural and social world. This methodology is characterized, above all else, by the critical spirit: namely, the commitment to the incessant testing of assertions through observations and/or experiments — the more stringent the tests, the better — and to revising or discarding those theories that fail the test. One corollary of the critical spirit is fallibilism: namely, the understanding that all our empirical knowledge is tentative, incomplete and open to revision in the light of new evidence or cogent new arguments (though, of course, the most well-established aspects of scientific knowledge are unlikely to be discarded entirely).. . . I stress that my use of the term 'science' is not limited to the natural sciences, but includes investigations aimed at acquiring accurate knowledge of factual matters relating to any aspect of the world by using rational empirical methods analogous to those employed in the natural sciences. (Please note the limitation to questions of fact. I intentionally exclude from my purview questions of ethics, aesthetics, ultimate purpose, and so forth.) Thus, 'science' (as I use the term) is routinely practiced not only by physicists, chemists and biologists, but also by historians, detectives, plumbers and indeed all human beings in (some aspects of) our daily lives. (Of course, the fact that we all practice science from time to time does not mean that we all practice it equally well, or that we practice it equally well in all areas of our lives.)

Alan Sokal

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that.

Richard Dawkins

You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished.

Will Self

and our few good times will be rare because we have the critical senseand are not easy to fool with laughter

Charles Bukowski

I am my own biggest critic. Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself. But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me and I don't want to spend my life with someone who is always critical. So I am going to stop being my own critic. It's high time that I accept all the great things about me.

C. JoyBell C.

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

The more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires. The spectacle’s estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by the fact that the individual’s gestures are no longer his own; they are the gestures of someone else who represents them to him.

Guy Debord

The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive… compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.

Guy Debord

The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.

Guy Debord

Critical Quotes

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