Complaints

Complaints, in general usage, are expressions of displeasure.

Quotes

• Do not complain and cry and pray, but open your eyes and see, for the light is all about you, and it is so wonderful, so beautiful, so far beyond anything of which men have ever dreamt, for which they have ever prayed, and it is for ever and for ever.
  • Gautama Buddha, quoted by Charles Webster Leadbeater, in The Masters and the Path (1925) p. 229

• If you get your head above the crowd, you're going to be criticized. So get used to the idea.
  • Matthew C. Brush as quoted by Dale Carnegie in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, chapter 21.

• Many people get a sense of savage satisfaction out of denouncing those who are better educated than they are or more successful.
  • Dale Carnegie in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, chapter 20.

• Nothing is feebler than the indolent rebellion of complaint...
  • George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, (1876)

• Complaints … encourage those who hear our complaints to behave like those we complain about. Once divulged, the offenses done to us seem to make others pardonable. … It is better to praise the favors others have done for you, so as to win still more of them. When you tell how those absent have favored you, you are asking those present to do the same.
  • Baltasar Gracián, Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia, § 129 (Christopher Maurer trans.)

• Every one must see daily instances of people who complain from a mere habit of complaining.
  • Richard Graves, Olla Podrida, (6 October 1787)

• There is an unfortunate disposition in a man to attend much more to the faults of his companions which offend him, than to their perfections which please him.
  • Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke; as quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts, edited by Tryon Edwards, (1908).

• It rhymes with complaining.
  • Matt Groening, providing a fool-proof method—in large part because it is so thematically relevant to his signature works, Life in Hell and The Simpsons—for remembering how to pronounce his last name; as quoted in "We hope you like rabbits — introducing 'Life In Hell'" by Al Morch, San Francisco Examiner (March 26, 1986), p. 49.

• No one ever kicks a dead dog.
  • William James Hutchins, as quoted by Dale Carnegie in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, chapter 20.

• Most people are indifferent, unless their self-interest is at stake. Then there are the chronic complainers.
  • Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions. 16 September 2013. p. 169. ISBN 978-1-57131-871-8. 

• If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how — the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
  • Abraham Lincoln As quoted in The Life and Public Service of Abraham Lincoln (1865) by Henry J. Raymond

• The message that really pisses me off is like, "Well, women in the Middle East are getting their genitalia cut, so you should just shut up." That is completely wrong. The point is we're not all truly free until we're all free, and the women who have mouthpieces need to speak up for the women in other places, and for men too.
  • MILCK, as quoted in Brendish, Lynda (November 6, 2017). "MILCK Explains 'Joyous' Message Behind New ‘Quiet’ Music Video (Exclusive)". KFMB-TV. Retrieved on 15 January 2019. 

• I have noticed this, that when a man is full of the Holy Ghost he is the very last man to be complaining of other people.
  • Dwight L. Moody, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 420.

• Surely, human is created uneasy; Murmuring when misfortune afflicts him, while selfish when success befalls him...
  • Quran 70:19-21

• When you see anyone complaining
  of such and such a person's ill-nature and bad temper,
  know that the complainant is bad-tempered,
  forasmuch as he speaks ill of that bad-tempered person,
  because he alone is good-tempered who is quietly forbearing
  towards the bad-tempered and ill-natured.
  • Rumi, Jewels of Remembrance : A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance : Containing 365 Selections from the Wisdom of Rumi (1996) Translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski, IV, 771-4

• Let him alone and let him curse; for the Lord has bidden him. It may be that the Lord will look on my distress, and the Lord will repay me with good for this cursing of me today.
  • Second Book of Samuel, chapter 16 verse 11, 12

• Vulgar people take huge delight in the faults and follies of great men.
  • Arthur Schopenhauer

• Never complain if you don't have a better solution.
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger, interview with Guenther Ziesel (2017)

• I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, 'Tis all barren!
  • Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) In the Street, Calais

• Some people are never content with their lot, let what will happen. Clouds and darkness are over their heads, alike whether it rain or shine. To them every incident is an accident, and every accident a calamity.
  • Charles Spurgeon, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 420.

• From mad dogs and grumbling professors may we all be delivered, and may we never take the complaint from either of them.
  • Charles Spurgeon, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 421.

• See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always non-acceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.
  • Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p.56

• At one end of this scale of this unconscious egoic pattern lies the egoic compulsive habit of faultfinding and complaining about others. Jesus referred to it when he said, “Why to do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3)
  • Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, (2005)

• Complaining as well as faultfinding and reactivity strengthen the ego's sense of boundary and separateness on which it's survival depends. But they also strengthen the ego in another way by giving it a feeling of superiority on which it thrives. It may not be immediately apparent how complaining, say, about a traffic jam, about politicians, about the “greedy wealthy” or the “lazy unemployed,” or your colleagues or ex-spouse, men or women, can give you a sense of superiority. Here is why. When you complain, by implication you are right and the person or situation you complain about or react against is wrong. There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right.
  • Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, (2005)

• Nothing is easier than fault-finding. No talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, is required to set up in the grumbling business. But those that are moved by a genuine desire to do good have little time for murmuring or complaint.
  • Robert West, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 420.