When We Criticise

1914

No one who habitually points out others' failures can be a success himself. There is something about the habit of criticism that prevents the free, full expression of good in the life of the critic.

It has been said, for example, that "professional literary critics never turn out any good literature. Their habitual attitude of criticism dries up the sources of literary production." Whether this sweeping statement is true in every case or not, it suggests a warning that most of us need to think about.

To be habitually interested in seeing and speaking about the failures of others is to dry up our own powers of good. And the reverse is equally true; to be sensitively conscious of the good that is in others, to discover it and talk about it freely, is to bring good into being in our own lives that might otherwise never come into existence.

How much better it is to discover that which makes for life than that which makes for death! — Sunday School Times.