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
It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
—William Lonsdale Watkinson (1838–1925) English Congregationalist Theologian, Author
To hear complaints is tiresome to the miserable and the happy.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Intelligence is nothing without delight.
—Paul Claudel (1868–1955) French Poet, Essayist, Dramatist
One chops the wood, the other does the grunting.
—Yiddish Proverb
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
Firmness, both in suffering and exertion, is a character which I would wish to possess.—I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint, and the cowardly feeble resolve.
—Robert Burns (1759–96) Scottish Poet, Songwriter
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
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
I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The squeaking wheel doesn’t always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced.
—Unknown
To make a criticism is a bit like complaining about the shape of the Pyramids.
—Unknown
It is no use to grumble and complain; It is no use to grumble and complain;
It’s just as cheap and easy to rejoice;
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain –
Why, rain’s my choice.
—James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer
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
Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
We lose the right of complaining sometimes, by denying something, but this often triples its force.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity and consume your own smoke with an extra draught of hard work, so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaints.
—William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian Physician
I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.
—Hebrew Proverb
People that pay for things never complain. It’s the guy you give something to that you can’t please.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
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
You can overcome anything if you don’t bellyache.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
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
Don’t complain that you are not getting what you want, Just be glad you are not getting what you deserve!
—Unknown
When people complain of life, it is almost always because they have asked impossible things of it.
—Ernest Renan (1823–92) French Philosopher, Historian
The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
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
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