Nelson Mandela Quotes

You have to take criticism with a grain of salt because you're never going to please everybody.

There's a lot of criticism in this job and what we do. It's in front of everybody and for everybody to have their own opinion about what we do. Don't be in this position if you can't handle that criticism.

To test a modest man's modesty do not investigate if he ignores applause, find out if he abides criticism.

I'm not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

He only profits from praise who values criticism.

You have days where you're trying to be your best, and you say something, and you see it being written in three different places and in a way that you didn't mean for it to be interpreted. But you just try to do your best. You kind of just have to let everything else roll off your back.

I take constructive criticism really well.

As a matter of fact, we are none of us above criticism; so let us bear with each other's faults.

You have to laugh, you have to be able to take criticism.

You can't be sensitive, because you're going to get criticized. I don't care who you are, you're going to get criticized.

Every time I'd get a critique or some redirection, I'd always just take it very personally. Now I have no problem with it.

I had to learn to dismiss people who would criticize me based on nothing, but I also had to learn not to believe the people who would compliment me and think I was great based on nothing. And that led me to have a very, very strong sense of myself and my strengths.

What I do is sometimes - at least in Germany - met with wounding campaigns. I always face the question: should I grow myself a thick skin and ignore it, or should I let myself be wounded? I've decided to be wounded, since, if I grew a thick skin, there are other things I wouldn't feel any more.

I don't read reviews because if they're bad I'm devastated and if they're good I get a big head.

Directors who turn into big babies and shut out criticism stop learning.

I was not used to criticism.

From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

I've learned not to look at reviews. Early on, I did. I was always curious.

… temperament is your basic orientation toward life. The Elizabethans boiled it down to four types: You were choleric or sanguine or melancholy or aggressive. You can be a good leader from any of them. Lincoln was melancholy, but what a president! It’s more to do with how you grow, how you learn from your mistakes.

It takes intellectual stamina to stay open, as a leader and a mind, to absorb information and adversity.

No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.

I take the harsh criticism along with the compliments.

Being a sensitive, thoughtful person opens you up for criticism and being affected by it.

In any job, you can come under attack or have a door slammed in your face. You do want to listen to critics; you don't want to be in a cocoon and never change. Get a second opinion from coworkers and friends. Know that criticism can be valid, but don't take it personally.

People are going to write things about you, but you have to take the good with the bad, so you shouldn't take it very seriously. If you take it to heart, it'll get very difficult to deal with. So, just take it with a pinch of salt.