Constructive criticism is a powerful instrument essential for improving performance. Positive support can be equally productive. Used together by a skilled leader they become the key to maximum results.

Constructive opinions can be very beneficial to our growth, but destructive ones that demoralize us don’t have a positive purpose. Abuse and criticism disguised as ‘feedback’ doesn’t deserve your attention.

Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, not learn from them.

People who are able to turn criticism into a positive situation are going to attract friends.

It should be recognised as a crime (in reality it is a crime of the worst nature) for any parent to build inferiority complexes in the mind of a child through unnecessary criticism. Employers who understand human nature get the best there is out of people not by criticism but by constructive suggestion. Parents may accomplish the same results with their children. Criticism will plant fear or resentment in the human heart but it will not build love or affection.

Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well.

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.

If you criticize others judgmentally, rather than simply commenting on their behavior impartially, that shows that you have their faults to work on in yourself. By criticizing others, moreover, you increase those faults in yourself. What you condemn in others, you will have to experience, someday, yourself. That is the karmic law. In that way, people are taught compassion.” — Paramhansa Yogananda

People who are good want to grow. They want to get off this rung and onto the next rung. They want to get all the way up the ladder. So they’re not looking for praise, they’re looking for criticism.

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop."

[<i>New Statesman</i> interview, 7 January 1939]

Reflect and remind yourself that an accurate criticism is the most valuable feedback you can receive.

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.

There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize any-one. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.

It’s better to create something that others criticize than to create nothing and criticize others. Ricky Gervais