If you want to be your best and perform at a high level, fear of people’s opinions may be holding you back.
Everyone has an opinion, and there are many people who are not afraid to tell you what they think. Words can often be more harmful than actions, even if it was unintended. Although it may hurt, you shouldn’t let the opinions of others get to you.
If you start paying less and less attention to what makes you you — your talents, beliefs, and values — and start conforming to what others may or may not think, you’ll harm your potential. You’ll start playing it safe because you’re afraid of what will happen on the other side of the critique. You’ll fear being ridiculed or rejected. When challenged, you’ll surrender your viewpoint.
If you’re doing anything worthwhile, you will be criticised, not everyone will support or understand you and so you will always need to be reminded on why you should stick with your stand or not. Let these 15 opinion quotes help you block out the noise and only accept an advice whose time has come.
1. “Care about people’s approval, and you will always be their prisoner.” – Lao Tzu
2. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss
3. “If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.” —Paulo Coelho
4. “Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.” —Isaac Asimov
5. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.” — Albert Einstein
6. “Nobody can understand what you’re feeling unless they burn the way you burned.” – Rihanna
7. “People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn’t stop you from having your own opinion.” —Anne Frank
8. “There are as many opinions as there are people.” —Terence
9. “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” —– Aristotle
10. “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.” —Douglas Adams
11. “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” —Oscar Wilde
12. “Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.” ― Tina Fey
13. “So many people along the way, whatever it is you aspire to do, will tell you it can’t be done. But it all it takes is imagination. You dream. You plan. You reach.”― Michael Phelps
14. “Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time.” – Daniel Handler
15. “Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you.”— Cynthia Kersey