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Let’s be honest – the word “feedback” often makes our shoulders tense up, doesn’t it?
Many times in life, we brace ourselves for a verdict, for a judgment on our worth, or for the sharp sting of criticism. We’ve been conditioned to see feedback as a red pen marking all the ways we are “wrong.”
But what if we could see it differently?
What if we could just think of it as a piece of information, a different perspective, a mirror showing us a spot we missed?
As challenging as it is to admit, the truth is that without feedback, it’s incredibly hard to truly know ourselves – or find a clear path to lasting growth and fulfillment.
It’s not easy to give and receive input, I know. But it’s a skill we can cultivate over time – a practice we can approach with intention.
Let us, together, embark on the journey by reflecting on the following feedback quotes, shall we?
Highlights
- The collection below examines the multifaceted nature of feedback, from its role as a mirror for self-awareness to its relationship with ego, humility, failure, and human connection.
- These wise words from mentors, philosophers, and communication experts are meant to serve as a source of encouragement, a tool for reframing perspectives, and a gentle reminder of one’s capacity for positive change.
Short Feedback Quotes
Feedback is the breakfast of champions.
Ken Blanchard
Not just a rare treat, feedback is exactly the nourishment needed to perform at one’s best.
Feedback is very useful for telling us “where we are.”
Marshall Goldsmith
Think of it as a personal GPS for the self. Without that external signal, it will be extremely challenging to plot a course forward.
Feedback turns good into better and better into best.
Frank Sonnenberg
Growth isn’t just for beginners; it’s for everyone. Input is the polishing cloth that refines “good enough” into something truly exceptional.
Quotes About the Importance of Feedback
We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.
Bill Gates
We simply cannot see all of our own blind spots. Lasting improvement, therefore, requires trusted mirrors to show us the full picture.
The quality of your feedback will shape the quality of your future.
Ann Marie Houghtailing
If we surround ourselves with those who only give vague or insincere comments, our path forward will be just as muddled. Seeking clear, honest, and constructive perspectives is a direct investment in a better future.
Feedback matters quotes
Feedback is not just how we grow – it’s how we connect.
Brené Brown
True feedback, given and received with care, is an act of connection. It’s an exchange that builds trust, saying, “I see you, and I care enough to engage.”
If we shield ourselves from all feedback, we stop growing.
Brené Brown
A shield protects, but it also isolates. When we stop listening to others out of fear or pride, we trap ourselves in an echo chamber, “safe” but completely stagnant.
Feedback, Growth & Learning Quotes
It’s easier to see our problems in others than to see them in ourselves.
Marshall Goldsmith
The things that frustrate us most in others are often unacknowledged parts of ourselves. What if we used that irritation as a clue to our own hidden patterns?
If you are blind to your flaws, you can’t address them.
Frank Sonnenberg
A problem can’t be fixed if it’s invisible. Feedback is simply the light that illuminates what’s hidden, turning blissful ignorance into empowered awareness.
Inspirational feedback quotes
If you reject feedback, you also reject the choice of acting in a way that may bring you abundant success.
John Mattone
Each piece of information is a doorway to a new choice. Rejecting it outright means locking that door and staying on the exact same path, effectively choosing comfort over potential.
When somebody makes a suggestion or gives you ideas, you’re either going to LEARN MORE or LEARN NOTHING. But you’re NOT going to LEARN LESS.
Marshall Goldsmith
Even “bad” feedback teaches us something – about the other person’s perspective, or perhaps about our own triggers. There is no risk of losing knowledge, only the chance to gain it.
Feedback quotes for students
Good Feedback Quotes
The best feedback tells you not just what went wrong, but how to make it right.
Adam Grant
It’s the crucial difference between a dead end and a detour. One is a judgment that stops progress; the other a map that shows a new way forward.
It’s always nice to get good feedback, and a bit of encouragement can go a long way.
Andy Murray
Indeed. Knowing what we’re doing right provides the fuel to tackle what needs changing.
Feedback, when given well, should not alienate the receiver of the feedback but should motivate them to perform better.
Anonymous
The goal is always to build up, not to tear down. If the input makes a person feel small or hopeless, the message has failed, regardless of its “truth.”
Giving Feedback Quotes
Catch people doing something right.
Ken Blanchard
We are experts at spotting errors. What would happen if we applied that same energy to spotting and naming what’s working?
The more feedback you give to people, the better it is, as long as the feedback is objective and not critical.
Brian Tracy
Objectivity removes the personal sting. “You’re too emotional” is a critique; “I noticed your voice got louder” is an observation. One sparks defensiveness, the other invites reflection.
Giving professional feedback quotes
In the absence of feedback, people will fill in the blanks with a negative. They will assume you don’t care about them or don’t like them.
Pat Summitt
Silence is never neutral; it’s a void. We are wired to fill that void, and we almost always fill it with our worst fears and insecurities.
Withholding feedback is choosing comfort over growth. Staying silent deprives people of the opportunity to learn.
Adam Grant
This is the “nice” trap. Many of us decide not to speak up – to avoid a difficult conversation or a moment of awkwardness. But that silence only serves our own sake, not the other person’s potential.
Feedback in the form of grades is the ultimate restraint: The grade can’t be changed, the lesson can’t be relearned, and numbers and letters don’t spell out a way forward.
Joe Hirsch
Real feedback is not a static verdict about what – but a living conversation about why and how.
Feedback quotes for school
Constructive Feedback Quotes
Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish growth.
Frank A. Clark
A downpour or a hailstorm just destroys the crop. The most effective input, like nourishing rain, should be delivered in a way that allows it to soak in and be leveraged for growth.
Positive criticism is feedback given with the purpose of helping another person to grow and to develop.
L. Lionel Kendrick
The key is purpose. Before speaking, we need to ask ourselves: Is my intention to help this person, or is it to vent, to be “right,” or to assert power? That intention changes everything.
Positive feedback quotes
When you are giving feedback, try to be descriptive and minimize judgment.
Edgar H. Schein
“This is sloppy” is a judgment. “I found five typos and the sections are out of order” is a description. Only the second one gives the person a clear action to take.
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
Proverbs 27:17
Sharpening creates friction and sparks; it’s not always a gentle process. But it’s through that necessary, challenging contact that we refine each other and remove our dull edges.
Destructive Feedback Quotes
Destructive comments are the cutting sarcastic remarks we spew out daily, with or without intention, that serve no other purpose than to put people down, hurt them, or assert ourselves as their superiors.
Marshall Goldsmith
This is feedback as a weapon, not a tool. It’s used for power, not for progress. It’s crucial that we learn to recognize it, and then refuse to carry its weight.
Destructive criticism is the biggest single enemy of human potential. It is worse than cancer or heart disease. While those diseases can ultimately lead to the deterioration and death of an individual, destructive criticism kills the soul of the person but leaves the body walking around.
Brian Tracy
It’s the internal or external voice that says, “Don’t even try.” It builds a prison of fear and self-doubt that can last a lifetime.
Read more: 50 Facing Fears Quotes – Unleash the Power Within
Negative feedback quotes
Gossip is when a negative is discussed with anyone who can’t fix the problem.
Dave Ramsey
If the person I’m complaining to has no power to help fix the issue, then the conversation is not problem-solving; it’s just venting.
The most destructive criticism is indifference.
E. W. Howe
At the very least, a negative comment means someone is paying attention. But far too often, our tendency is to remain silent and decide not to speak up – just for our own sake.
How to overcome destructive criticism? Just love a little more.
Sri Chinmoy
This isn’t just about loving the critic. It’s about meeting the poison with the antidote of self-compassion, refusing to let another’s bitterness curdle your own heart.
Read more: 84 Unconditional Love Quotes for Every Soul
Feedforward Quotes
Whereas feedback comprises people’s opinion of your past behavior, feedforward represents other people’s ideas that you should be using in the future.
Marshall Goldsmith
We cannot change the past; hence, it does no good to dwell on it. Feedback critiques what’s done, while feedforward addresses what’s next.
What’s great about feedforward is that the whole focus is on helping each other – NOT judging each other.
Marshall Goldsmith
It’s simply easier to receive. “For the next project, try…” is much different compared to “On your last project, you failed at…” The former bypasses the ego’s defenses.
Feedforward helps people envision and focus on a positive future, not a failed past.
Marshall Goldsmith
Indeed. It’s the difference between driving a car by staring in the rearview mirror versus looking through the windshield. One is a recipe for a crash; the other is the only way to reach a destination.
Asking for Feedback Quotes
Average players want to be left alone. Good players want to be coached. Great players want to be told the truth.
Doc Rivers
Which one am I right now? Am I seeking comfort, or am I truly ready to be open to guidance and become great?
Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful thing. Sometimes people won’t give you honest feedback because they’re afraid. In this case, disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources.
Steve Jobs
If we only reach out to those inside our bubble, we’ll just get our own ideas reflected back. True, game-changing insight comes from the edges, from perspectives completely unlike our own.
There’s nothing wrong with offering an opinion in the normal give and take of discussions. You want people to agree or disagree freely. But it’s NOT appropriate to pass judgment when we specifically ask people to voice their opinions about us.
Marshall Goldsmith
When we ask for input and then argue, we accomplish two things: we learn nothing, and we teach that person to never be honest with us again. The only appropriate response is, “Thank you.”
Read more: Not Saying Thank You – Why Do We Often Fail to Express Gratitude?
Quotes for Receiving Feedback
Be more curious than defensive.
Brené Brown
A perfect mantra for those difficult moments. When feeling that hot sting of a critique, can we pause and just say, “Tell me more about that”?
If someone corrects you and you feel offended, then you have an ego problem.
Nouman Ali Khan
The offense we feel is, many times, our ego flaring up to protect a fragile self-image. Our true self, the part that wants to grow, is simply interested.
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.
Proverbs 12:15
An ordinary person lives in an echo chamber of one. Wisdom begins with the humility to admit that one’s own perspective is, by definition, limited and incomplete.
Treat feedback as a gift rather than as a slap in the face.
Frank Sonnenberg
Even if the “gift” is poorly wrapped, unwanted, or clumsily given, it’s still information we didn’t have before. We can say “thank you” and then privately decide what to do with it.
Feedback is a gift quote
It takes humility to seek feedback. It takes wisdom to understand it, analyze it and appropriately act on it.
Stephen Covey
Humility just opens the door. Wisdom is what we do once the input is inside. It’s the calm filter that sorts, “What part of this is true? What part is their own baggage? And what, if anything, is my next step?”
Feedback & appreciation quotes
The best feedback is what we don’t want to hear.
George Raveling
Information that confirms our beliefs feels good, but it teaches us nothing. The input that stings, the very one that makes us defensive, is almost always the one holding the biggest lesson.
Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it… If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Our tendency is to find flaws, to form a reply, to see if it matches what we already “know.” True, deep listening requires us to set our own “rightness” aside, even for just a moment.
You do not have to like what the other person has said or how they said it – but when you focus on what you want to say, and how you can communicate it so that it will be heard by others, you gain control of yourself, your emotions, your thoughts, and your actions.
Jerry Manney
We cannot decide what kind of input we receive. But we can always control our response. That is where our true power lies.
Read more: 50 Essential Emotional Intelligence Quotes for Success
Thanks for the feedback quotes
Failure is Feedback Quotes
There is no failure, only feedback.
Robert Allen
A failure is to meant to be a full stop. It is just a comma, a simple course correction on a much longer journey.
If you treat failure as feedback, you’ll never stop growing.
Tim Fargo
This is the very definition of a growth mindset. Every setback becomes a lesson, and every lesson cultivates resilience. It transforms failure from a dead end into a stepping stone.
True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes.
Daniel Kahneman
Expertise doesn’t come just from doing. It comes from doing, messing up, understanding why, and adjusting. That rapid feedback loop is the secret ingredient.
It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.
Bill Gates
Success is a pleasant but often poor teacher; it is the reason why many people become overconfident and arrogant. Failure, on the other hand, is a much tougher instructor, but its lessons are much more precious and stick with us longer.
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
Bill Gates
An unhappy person will provide a passionate, detailed list of every flaw. What a priceless, free consultation, if we can just quiet our ego long enough to listen!
Read more: 77 Learning from Failure Quotes – Moving On from Past Mistakes
Feedback quotes for business
Feedback and Mentorship Quotes
A coach does for the rest of your life what a personal trainer does for your health and fitness.
Elaine MacDonald
A trainer sees your physical form. A coach sees your hidden patterns, blind spots, and untapped potential, holding you accountable to the larger vision you want to visualize.
Read more: 40 Life Coaching Quotes – Wisdom for Levelling Up Your Life
A mentor empowers a person to see a possible future and believe it can be obtained.
Shawn Hitchcock
Sometimes we are too mired in our present to see a new future. A mentor is someone who stands on higher ground and can see the path, lending us their belief until our own is strong enough.
Feedback quotes for trainers
The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.
Steven Spielberg
Instead of “Be like me”, a great mentor asks, “Who are you?” and provides the tools and space for that person to emerge.
Feedback quotes for teachers
One of the greatest values of mentors is the ability to see ahead what others cannot see and to help them navigate a course to their destination.
John C. Maxwell
They’ve already walked the path. They know where the invisible pitfalls and the unexpected shortcuts are. Rather than being psychic, they just have a map forged from experience.
In the end, you don’t so much find yourself as you find someone who knows who you are.
Robert Brault
Most of us can’t see our own faces. Sometimes, self-discovery is simply finding that individual who realizes our true light and reflects it back to us so clearly that we can finally see it, too.
Read more: 35 Mentoring Quotes – Lessons Learned, Inspiration Shared
Philosophical Reflections on Feedback
Negative feedback can make us bitter or better.
Robin Sharma
The input itself is just neutral data. The choice is entirely ours. Will we let it harden us into resentment, or will we use it to sharpen our skills?
There is no need of a teacher for those who know how to think.
Mahatma Gandhi
When one learns to think reflectively, all of life becomes the teacher. Every failure, every interaction, and every quiet moment is a lesson. The teacher is not a person, but the process of curious inquiry itself.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Another person’s words are just sound waves. The feeling of inferiority is an internal act of co-signature. With practice, we can learn to simply withhold it.
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
Stephen Covey
We’re all guilty of this. Instead of listening, we’re just reloading, waiting for a pause to make our own point. True, generous listening is, indeed, one of the rarest skills in the world.
Feedback often tells you more about the person who is giving it than about you.
Stephen Covey
Is their feedback about tiny details? They’re detail-oriented. Is it harsh? They might be under pressure. Is it focused on feelings? Then they have high empathy. Every piece of input is a two-way mirror.
Even as a solid rock is unshaken by the wind, so are the wise unshaken by praise or blame.
Buddha, Dhammapada, Chapter 6, ‘The Wise Man’
This is true equanimity. It’s having an internal center of gravity so strong that you aren’t knocked over by either praise or blame. Both are just wind passing by.
How easy it is to see your brother’s faults; How hard to face your own. You winnow his in the wind like chaff, But yours you hide, Like a cheat covering up an unlucky throw.
Buddha, Dhammapada, Chapter 18, ‘Impurity’
Most of us have 20/20 vision for the flaws of others, but we are completely ignorant of our own. Only by trying to clean our own glasses first may we become better.
Read more: 105 Stoic Quotes for a Virtuous & Fulfilling Existence
Leadership Feedback Quotes
We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop.
Peter Drucker
Sometimes the most powerful leadership move is subtraction. Stop micromanaging. Stop talking over others. Stop needing to be the smartest person in the room.
The best leaders ask, ‘What can I do better?’
Simon Sinek
That simple question instantly communicates humility and a commitment to service. It shifts the focus from “What are my employees doing wrong?” to “How can I improve to serve my team?”
No matter how good you think you are as a leader, my goodness, the people around you will have all kinds of ideas for how you can get better. So for me, the most fundamental thing about leadership is to have the humility to continue to get feedback and to try to get better – because your job is to try to help everybody else get better.
Jim Yong Kim
Leadership isn’t a static title one arrives at. It’s a dynamic process of learning. The moment one believes they are “done” and no longer need further refinement, their decline has already begun.
Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.
Andy Stanley
Or, more accurately, they will be surrounded by people who have plenty to say but have learned not to say it to them. The silence in that room is not agreement; it’s the sound of futility.
Feedback quotes for leaders
Final Thoughts
Feedback, as we have seen, is a crucial component of one’s self-discovery journey. Rather than trying to be perfect, becoming defensive, or avoiding criticisms altogether, what matters is to gracefully receive every input, reflect on them intentionally, take what works for us, and let go of the rest.
May these words help you listen with a little more openness, a little more curiosity, and a lot more compassion – both for yourself and others!
Other resources you may be interested in:
- 85 Critical Thinking Quotes: On the Courage to Question
- 111 Integrity Quotes: Nurture Character & Inner Truth
- 155 Quotes About Identity & Self: Mirrors of the Soul
- 55 Self-discovery Quotes: Know Thyself
- 45 Skill Development Quotes: Fuel Learning & Mastery
Let’s Tread the Path Together, Shall We?
