#Self Criticism Quotes

“I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.”

“Lord, how tired one gets of one's own writing.”

“I'm a Scorpio with a Pisces moon. I am very critical of myself. I'm actually way less critical of others than I am of myself. I'm in my own head a lot. It's hard and really discouraging.”

“It's hard when you read an article saying bad things about you. It is as if someone is sticking a knife on your heart. But I am the harshest critic of my work.”

“When you begin a picture you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy the thing, do it over several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery, the artist does not really suppress it, but rather condenses it, makes it more substantial. What comes out in the end is the result of discarded finds. Otherwise you become your own connoisseur.”

“I don't very often think I've done a good job. I don't like the majority of what I do. I shouldn't say I don't like it, but I'm not satisfied with almost everything that I do.”

“I think Bridge Over Troubled Water was a very good song. Artie sang it beautifully. The Boxer was a really nice record. But I don't think I've written any great songs.”

“It is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of high maturity, to rise to the level of self-criticism.”

“There's nobody for me to attack in this matter even with soft and gentle ridicule-and I shouldn't ever think of using a grown up weapon in this kind of a nursery. Above all, I couldn't venture to attack the clergymen whom you mention, for I have their habits and live in the same glass house which they are occupying. I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.”

“That mean voice in your head is not you and not true.”

“We know well that mistakes are more easily detected in the works of others than in one's own.”

“An artist who lacks the power of self-criticism accomplishes but little. It is good if your work stands higher than your own opinion of it; bad if it is on the same level. But it is a great disaster if your work stands lower than your judgment of it.”

“Nothing is more apt to deceive us than our own judgment of our work. We derive more benefit from having our faults pointed out by our enemies than from hearing the opinions of friends.”

“The painter who has no doubt about his own ability will attain very little.”

“When you are painting you should take a flat mirror and often look at your work within it, and it will then be seen in reverse, and will appear to be by the hand of some other master, and you will be better able to judge of its faults than in any other way.”

“The worst evil which can befall the artist is that his work should appear good in his own eyes.”

“If on your own or by the criticism of others you discover error in your work, correct it then and there; otherwise in exposing your work to the public, you will expose your error also.”

“Looking back on the production of 'Nevermind,' I'm embarrassed by it now.' It's closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.”

“The hunger [to success] is the same, no matter what it is that you're doing. It's like an unquenchable thirst to learn more, or to feel like you could have done more, and to be brutally honest and self critical, which is very hard to do. It's easy, and human nature is to just blame somebody else. It's very, very hard to self assess.”

“I wouldn't like me, if I had to be around me.”

“I live in my own place - have never copied anyone even half, and at any master who lacks the grace - to laugh at himself - I laugh.”

“I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for - scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself.”

“I have lots of ideas. Trouble is, most of them suck.”

“A very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions.”

“The violence done us by others is often less painful than that which we do to ourselves.”

“A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.”

“I can't usually stomach a project after I finish it, but for those days and weeks and months that it's new to me, I do listen to it, and it might change over time, but it's about function.”

“I don't know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.”

“I confess to wincing every so often at a poorly chosen word, a mangled sentence, an expression of emotion that seems indulgent or overly practiced. I have the urge to cut the book by fifty pages or so, possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity.”

“To become self-educated you should condemn yourself for all those things that you would criticize others.”

“I'm never fully satisfied with any Microsoft product.”

“I'd never done anything useful as far as my writing.”

“Sometimes I'm so deeply buried under self-reproaches that I long for a word of comfort to help me dig myself out again.”

“Then I fall asleep with a stupid feeling of wishing to be different from what I am or from what I want to be; perhaps to behave differently from the way I want to behave or do behave.”