Every man needs a blind eye and a deaf ear, so when people applaud, you'll only hear half of it, and when people salute, you'll only see part of it. Believe only half the praise and half the criticism.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that one should be cautious about how much attention they pay to both praise and criticism.
Charles Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of maintaining a level of detachment from both praise and criticism in order to stay grounded. By advising individuals to adopt a 'blind eye' and 'deaf ear,' he encourages them to acknowledge only part of the external validation or judgment they receive, promoting a balanced perspective that protects one from becoming overly inflated by compliments or unduly diminished by criticism.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience, you could quote this to encourage a measured response to feedback.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Enlightenment for a wave is the moment the wave realizes it is water. At that moment, all fear of death disappears.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
I was trying to explain my situation to myself. My situation was that I was in pain and nobody knew it, even I had trouble knowing it. So I told myself, over and over, You are in pain. It was the only way I could get through to myself. I was demonstrating externally and irrefutably an inward condition.
Since things are moving faster and faster, we cannot afford the amount of stupidity that we used to be able to tolerate.
Facts speak plainer than words
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.