A church bulletin had a clever poem about criticism that began:

A little seed lay in the ground
And soon began to sprout;
“Now, which of all the flowers around,
Shall I,” it mused, “come out?”

The seed could then be heard saying, “I don’t care to be a rose. It has thorns. I have no desire to be a lily. It’s too colorless. And I certainly wouldn’t want to be a violet. It’s too small, and it grows too close to the ground.”

The poem concludes with this verse about the faultfinding seed:

And so it criticized each flower,
That supercilious seed,
Until it woke one summer hour
And found itself a weed!

Do you agree that the root of all criticism is pride? Are there exceptions?

Tags: criticism, poetry, seed