Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
There is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
Constant complaint is the poorest sort of pay for all the comforts we enjoy.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.
—Lou Holtz (1893–1980) American Stage Performer
He cannot complain of a hard sentence, who is made master of his own fate.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.
—Hebrew Proverb
One chops the wood, the other does the grunting.
—Yiddish Proverb
When complaints are freely heard, deeply considered and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe. No path is wholly rough.
—Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American New Thought Writer, Physician, Entrepreneur
Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
Intelligence is nothing without delight.
—Paul Claudel (1868–1955) French Poet, Essayist, Dramatist
I believe in grumbling; it is the politest form of fighting known.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
I will not be as those who spend the day in complaining of headache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
One dog barks at something, the rest bark at him.
—Chinese Proverb
What do sad complaints avail if the offense is not cut down by punishment.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
Noise proves nothing, Often a hen who has laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Never complain. Never explain.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer
To hear complaints is tiresome to the miserable and the happy.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Our present time is indeed a criticizing and critical time, hovering between the wish, and the inability to believe. Our complaints are like arrows shot up into the air at no target: and with no purpose they only fall back upon our own heads and destroy ourselves.
—William Temple (1881–1944) English Theologian, Archbishop
The tendency to whining and complaining may be taken as the surest sign symptom of little souls and inferior intellects.
—Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773–1850) Scottish Judge, Literary Critic
I think a compliment ought to always precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Realize that if you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo
When a person finds themselves predisposed to complaining about how little they are regarded by others, let them reflect how little they have contributed to the happiness of others.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
We lose the right of complaining sometimes, by denying something, but this often triples its force.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
Depend upon it, that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him: for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any mention of it.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Don’t complain that you are not getting what you want, Just be glad you are not getting what you deserve!
—Unknown
He that falls by himself never cries.
—Turkish Proverb
The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
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