“I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Source: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 30.
Context: I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it. I stand in awe of my own opinion. The secret demerits of which we alone, perhaps, are conscious, are often more difficult to bear than those which have been publicly censured in us, and thus in some degree atoned for.

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow202

American poet 1807–1882

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