Quotes about Complaining

Loosen up. Don't you have some people to hug, rocks to skip, or lips to kiss? . . , Someday you are going to retire; why not today? Not retire from your job, just retire from your attitude. Honestly, has complaining ever made the day better? Has grumbling ever paid the bills? Has worrying about tomorrow ever changed it? Let someone else run the world for a while.

and spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you led us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!”

Sorrow removes a great deal of a person's shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow.

Notice how much Israel's response to hardship maps onto ours. We face hard things and we complain about things as mundane as a menu. Before long, our complaining becomes an assessment of blame. Then the blaming goes vertical as it questions God's wisdom and goodness. We, too, are in the wilderness of a fallen world. We have not yet entered the Promised Land of eternity, so we face hardships like Israel did.

So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

There is a simple rule we can follow to guide us in our conversation: If it is good, uplifting, wholesome, and pleasant, say all you want to, but if it is evil, negative, critical, and complaining, then don't say it. Ask God to change your heart so there is not even a hint of wanting to say it. What is in our heart will eventually come out of our mouth, so we cannot change what we say unless we change what we think.

I imagine that it saddens the heart of God when we murmur and complain, instead of being thankful after He's been so good to us.

But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt—to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

Is it not enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? Must you also appoint yourself as ruler over us?

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

Whining is not only graceless, but it can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood.

And there in the desert they all grumbled against Moses and Aaron.