“When you find the mind judging, you don’t have to stop it from doing that,” Jon Kabat-Zinn said while contemplating seven meditation tips to quiet your mind. “All that is required is to be aware of it happening. No need to judge the judging and make matters even more complicated for yourself.”
But the opposite happens in your everyday life. Your mind is constantly generating judgments about yourself and other people. And most of the time those judgments are biased and unjustified. When this type of negative thinking becomes a mental habit, it can harm your self-confidence and make you feel lonely and unhappy.
One of the first things you can do to stop judging both yourself and others, is to start a daily meditation practice. But it can be difficult if you haven’t done it before. Not to mention that you need extra motivation to make meditation a habit. That’s why I’ve put together this list of 100 best non-judgment quotes to help you get started and improve your mindfulness. But before we begin, let’s talk about being judgmental and why these quotes will be helpful for you.
Why Read Inspirational Non-Judgmental Quotes
Imagine having a friend who’s constantly criticizing you any chance she gets.
She dislikes your workplace because it does not allow you to reach your full potential. She tells you that your hobbies are just distractions that keep you stuck in life. When you tell her about your dreams and aspirations, she dismisses them as invalid and out of touch with reality.
If you had a friend like that, you’d sever all ties with her, right? So if you wouldn’t accept this judgmental attitude from a friend, why do you accept it in yourself? We let ourselves get away with a surprising amount of negativity that manifests itself as self-criticism and judgment of others. So it’s not surprising that it can be seriously damaging to your well-being.
When you take time to read through these non-judgment quotes and do a little self-reflection, you’re training your mind to notice when you’re being judgmental and forgive yourself for this deeply ingrained human flaw we all have.
Of course, even though some of your negative thoughts may be unwarranted and overly judgmental, some of that criticism can stem from real issues that need to be addressed. That’s why you should keep an open mind when you read these quotes and remember that it’s a very nuanced area.
100 Best Non-Judgment Quotes to Improve Mindfulness
- “Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances. – Wayne Dyer
- “Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.” — Jim Rohn
- “Judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.” — Simon Bolivar
- “Winning a pageant or sometimes simply participating in a contest can change your life. Outer beauty is just a part of the judgment, but what’s important are your views and opinions that are shown to the world.” — Lara Dutta
- “Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.” — Jim Horning
- “I love when things are transparent, free and clear of all inhibition and judgment.” — Pharrell Williams
- “It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last judgment by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.” — Franz Kafka
- “The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgment is never just.” — D. H. Lawrence
- “‘Til the infallibility of human judgments shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death.” — Marquis de Sade
“Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.” – Wayne Dyer
- “To live with someone who likes you, and whose judgment you respect, because you love them, does make quite a difference, I find.” — Roger Scruton
- “I tend to make snap judgments about people.” — Jane Fallon
- “Before passing a judgment on somebody just give it a thought about what he or she went through.” — Paresh Rawal
- “I question the political judgment of those who would have the nerve to paint Christ white with his obvious African nose, lips and wooly hair.” — John Henrik Clarke
- “There are thus great swathes of the past where understanding is more important and reputable than judgment, because the principal actors performed in line with the ideas and values of that time, not of ours.” — Douglas Hurd
- “The great joy of being a prosecutor is that you don’t take whatever case walks in the door. You evaluate the case; you make your best judgment. You only go forward if you believe that the defendant is guilty.” — Merrick Garland
- “Joe Burrow’s self-esteem – and this is really important – is tied to what Joe Burrow thinks of himself. It is about confidence, focus, judgment, maturity.” — Colin Cowherd
- “There’s a grown-upness about television now that wasn’t there before. You do know you’re doing stuff for adults who can tell the difference between right and wrong, well hopefully, and make judgments about violence. And with ‘Peaky,’ always if there is an act of violence, there is a consequence.” — Steven Knight
- “You can develop good judgment as you do the muscles of your body – by judicious, daily exercise.” — Grenville Kleiser
- “But they who give straight judgments to strangers and to those of the land and do not transgress what is just, for them the city flourishes and its people prosper.” — Hesiod
- “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” — J. R. R. Tolkien
- “Every judgment of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.” — Thomas Aquinas
- “It’s a complete lie, why do people buy these papers? It’s not the truth I’m here to say. You know, don’t judge a person, do not pass judgment, unless you have talked to them one on one. I don’t care what the story is, do not judge them because it is a lie.” — Michael Jackson
- “Look. Art knows no prejudice, art knows no boundaries, art doesn’t really have judgment in it’s purest form. So just go, just go.” — K. D. Lang
- “At the end of the day, you need someone who listens to you with no judgment.” — Payal Rohatgi
- “I don’t have time for their judgment and their stupidity and you know they lay down with their ugly wives in front of their ugly children and look at their loser lives and then they look at me and they say, ‘I can’t process it’ well, no, you never will stop trying, just sit back and enjoy the show. You know?” — Charlie Sheen
- “It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgment after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.” — David Bowie
- “Wells Fargo had a glitch – the truth of the matter is they made a business judgment that was wrong. I don’t think anything is fundamentally wrong.” — Charlie Munger
- “An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgments simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.” — Edward de Bono
“Depend upon yourself. Make your judgment trustworthy by trusting it. You can develop good judgment as you do the muscles of your body – by judicious, daily exercise. To be known as a man of sound judgment will be much in your favor.” — Grantland Rice
- “It’s like do White privilege exist? Absolutely. In the case of passing judgment, you have to make sure that you’re passing judgment on the right person.” — Big Daddy Kane
- “I go by my judgment when a role is offered to me.” — Biju Menon
- “The Gospel offends the sinner and seeks to break the sinner’s comfort and contentment by bringing him into stark realization of the eternal judgment of God.” — John MacArthur
- “The main engagement of the writer is towards truthfulness; therefore he must keep his mind and his judgment free.” — Gabrielle Roy
- “I don’t live with judgment or resentment, I don’t have time for it.” — Joe Wicks
- “What we don’t need in country music is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgment of what belongs and what doesn’t.” — Charley Pride
- “The man I am will always raise a protest against the man I wanted to be and the two will live together to the end, but the man I wanted to be will be the one on whom judgment will be passed.” — Julien Green
- “I personally don’t like to jump to conclusions and pass my judgment and suddenly start looking at a person differently. I cannot do that, it’s not right to do that.” — Arshad Warsi
- “And all men are ready to pass judgment on the priest as if he was not a being clothed with flesh, or one who inherited a human nature.” — John Chrysostom
- “Working hard to fulfill a dream or instinct and learning over time it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean a career is over and a reputation killed. When a reputation is killed, it’s when failure comes as a result of loss of integrity or judgment… breaking of laws.” — Bob Iger
- “You don’t even need the director’s judgment. It’s too much.” — Charlotte Gainsbourg
- “We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgment of the intellect is only part of the truth.” — Carl Jung
- “Because you are women, people will force their thinking on you, their boundaries on you. They will tell you how to dress, how to behave, who you can meet and where you can go. Don’t live in the shadows of people’s judgment. Make your own choices in the light of your own wisdom.” — Amitabh Bachchan
- “Make no judgments where you have no compassion.” — Anne McCaffrey
- “You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgments about what is going on.” — Harry S Truman
- “One should make morals judgments for oneself.” — Kathryn Bigelow
- “Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgment will always be in demand under all conditions.” — Roger Babson
- “Governments that block the aspirations of their people, that steal or are corrupt, that oppress and torture or that deny freedom of expression and human rights should bear in mind that they will find it increasingly hard to escape the judgment of their own people, or where warranted, the reach of international law.” — William Hague
- “We need someone with superb judgment in their own right because, yes, a president can hire the best advisors on Earth, but I guarantee you this: Five advisors will give five different opinions. And it is the president – and the president alone – who always makes the final call.” — Michelle Obama
- “Having power and being in a position of power can really blur your judgment, and it’s not always that clear.” — Bob Morley
“I don’t have time for their judgment and their stupidity and you know they lay down with their ugly wives in front of their ugly children and look at their loser lives and then they look at me and they say, ‘I can’t process it’ well, no, you never will stop trying, just sit back and enjoy the show. You know?” — Charlie Sheen
- “It was expected of me that I was to bow to the name of Andrew Jackson… even at the expense of my conscience and judgment. such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to my principles.” — Davy Crockett
- “There has been a most Providential Guidance which the want of prudence, vigilance, or judgment has not impeded, and it is here that we can most clearly see the designs of God.” — Catherine McAuley
- “And finally, no matter how good the science gets, there are problems that inevitably depend on judgment, on art, on a feel for financial markets.” — Martin Feldstein
- “Organization can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgment.” — Louis D. Brandeis
- “The industry is a difficult place to be in. It is not at all rosy. There are judgments being made. I don’t like bad publicity, but that is part and parcel of it. However, I am grateful for whatever I have got from the industry.” — Aditi Rao Hydari
- “The trouble of the king becomes the trouble of the subject, for how shall we live if judgment is withheld, or if faulty decisions are promulgated?” — James Stephens
- “So just as I want pilots on the planes that I fly, when it comes to monetary policy, I want to think that there is someone with sound judgment at the controls.” — Martin Feldstein
- “Don’t be intimidated by people who seem to be experts. Hear their points of view and get their judgments. But at the end of day, you’ve got to make a judgment because it’s not their life that’s going to be affected so much as your future.” — Robert Dallek
- “Some of the best times in my life happened under the influence of drugs… I’d still be doing it if I could make good judgment calls. I’d still be doing it if I didn’t blow up to the size of an aircraft hangar, because it was a great time.” — Robbie Williams
- “I mean one of the basic rules when you’re acting is that you mustn’t stand in judgment on a character, you mustn’t say Hitler was a bad man because you can’t act in that way.” — Janet Suzman
- “All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties.” — Charles William Eliot
- “Indeed – judicious, consistent parenting is a dream of mine. No judgments, learning space and listening carefully are my goals.” — Emma Thompson
- “I had so much anger and judgment towards myself for my work not being up to the standard that I expected it to be, so I wouldn’t allow myself to complete anything.” — Beth Hart
- “I don’t really look at the charts at all. If anything, I try to out-do what I’ve done before. I try to make music that I like and I trust my own judgment with what will work with a wider audience. If you compare yourself to the charts, you lose perspective on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.” — Avicii
- “Audiences aren’t fools – their judgment really is important. And the true heroes of films are the investors. They take the risk, after all.” — Stephen Frears
- “I have said this in the past and I will continue to repeat it as long as I live: Whoever tries to hurt our national unity is my enemy until the day of judgment.” — Hussein of Jordan
- “The ethics of editorial judgment, however, began to go though a sea change during the late 1970s and ’80s when the Carter and Reagan Administrations de-regulated the television industry.” — Roger Mudd
- “Well I’ve already made it clear that it’s a matter for individuals in exercising their own judgment, their own consciences to speak freely on matters of policy.” — Ron Davies
- “Although Alchemy has now fallen into contempt, and is even considered a thing of the past, the physicain should not be influenced by such judgments.” — Paracelsus
- “A second reason why science cannot replace judgment is the behavior of financial markets.” — Martin Feldstein
“I had so much anger and judgment towards myself for my work not being up to the standard that I expected it to be, so I wouldn’t allow myself to complete anything.” — Beth Hart
- “A poem generated by its own laws may be unrealized and bad in terms of so-called objective principles of taste, judgment, deduction.” — A. R. Ammons
- “The Gospel announces that Jesus came to acquit the guilty. He came to judge and be judged in our place. Christ came to satisfy the deep judgment against us once and for all so that we could be free from the judgment of God, others, and ourselves.” — Tullian Tchividjian
- “I don’t any longer make any quality judgment between theater and cinema. They are different experiences for the audience, and they also are for the actors – although they have a lot in common.” — Ian Mckellen
- “Me in my music and onstage – that’s me without any fears of judgment; that’s me when I’m shining.” — Banks
- “What matters in any campaign is that you have a strategic core that makes the judgments, decides the strategy, and can deliver.” — Douglas Alexander
- “Only the U.K. can trigger Article 50. And in my judgment, we should only do that when there is a clear view about what new arrangements we are seeking with our European neighbors.” — George Osborne
- “I won’t criticize anyone else’s statements, and the public will make up their own minds. And if the public think that any side or any individual has strayed too far away from what’s expected of public representatives, then they’ll make that judgment.” — Michael Gove
- “Sometimes I want to withhold judgment on whether something is good or bad, but I do feel like identifying with TV characters – connecting to them emotionally more than you connect to literal, physical people in your life – causes problems. They just don’t have the same existence or boundaries as you do. They resemble us, but they are not us.” — Alexandra Kleeman
- “People are making judgments about Russian people based on me. This is why I never allow myself any aggression towards my opponent.” — Fedor Emelianenko
- “I was talking to my publisher, Jamie Ceretta, who’s one of my closest confidants and allies when I’m working on new music. I feel like I can always count on his judgment because he’ll tell me if he doesn’t like something. It’s sometimes hard to get people to tell you if they don’t like something.” — Jim James
- “I love seeing the videos of people who go and talk to these neo-Nazis because they’re like, ‘I’m just here to have a conversation and understand.’ Having a conversation about it and talking about your emotions without judgment. You have to be able to be completely open, because they’re not going to be, but you could turn a new leaf in their life.” — Amber Mark
- “When you make the judgment as a network that there are only three candidates, you are censoring points of view.” — Tim Robbins
- “Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.” — William Godwin
- “Picking a best friend who stands up for what she believes in, is true to herself and allows you to be yourself without judgment of how ‘cool’ you are? Well, now you’re picking a friend for life.” — Renee Olstead
- “I believe that the fact and the reality of homosexuality and heterosexuality and of opposite and same-gender unions should be taught in our public schools without a value judgment system also being offered.” — Ed Case
- “Wherefore the race being not to the swift, etc. but time and chance happening to all men, I leave the judgment of the whole to the Candid, of whose correction I shall never be impatient.” — William Petty
- “I Kenneth Robert Livingstone, having been elected to the office of mayor of London, declare that I take that office upon myself, and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it to the best of my judgment and ability.” — Ken Livingstone
- “What can the Church do? If she stands by her moral teaching, then she will be seen as standing in judgment over a vast percentage of Europeans.” — Timothy Radcliffe
- “That I can’t relate to today’s music or morals doesn’t make either necessarily bad. Just different. I leave the judgments to others.” — Perry Como
“Almost every comedy you see is about people making all wrong choices and making all the errors of judgment possible. Good comedy is when it works on this scale. Because it is psychologically very real.” — Colin Firth
- “I experienced the judgment of a lot of people – and deservedly so.” — Sienna Miller
- “I was trained as journalist never to use the word ‘I,’ never to put my own opinion there. In fact, if you had a dollar or a euro for every time I use the word ‘I,’ you would be a poor person. But this is not true in general. I like the idea of being able to stand away and make a judgment.” — Suzy Menkes
- “I don’t really have that many judgments on things, or crazy statements that I feel like I have to put across.” — Rita Ora
- “There’s a lot of judgment that can come from outside sometimes, and there’s media scrutiny that is placed on a lot of women in the public eye, and I just couldn’t care less. I really couldn’t care less.” — Kate Winslet
- “The U.K.’s relationship with the U.S. has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgments differ.” — John Chilcot
- “Pace judgment is everything in the hour record. If you can ride 16.1 or 16.2-second laps constantly for 221 laps, and not go 15.9s or 16.4s, it’s keeping it on the line every lap, lap after lap.” — Bradley Wiggins
- “It is no judgment of a thing outside yourself to say it makes you ill. The wise reader knows that every pronouncement is, to some degree, an act of self-exposure; the book you find too challenging might only show how ill-equipped you are to face its challenge.” — Howard Jacobson
- “In animation, there’s not a medium I believe that’s more collaborative. It is a team of people, of different disciplines, coming together. The decisions are made by consensus in many cases. My job as a director is to exercise the best judgment I can in terms of which decision is the best one to make for the movie.” — Kelly Asbury
- “The entire idea of building a series of systems in a business is simply this – to create the tools that allow you, as a business owner, to increase productivity and get the job done. The idea behind these systems, of course, is to quit needing your judgment or input in every area of the business.” — Michael Gerber
- “It’s great to engage with the mainstream media to get messages out, but the most empowering tool is to create records of our lives, and our own images, which are not filtered through judgments, biases, or misunderstandings.” — Janet Mock
- “I think what we should do as historians is understand. And we can have our own views about how things turned out, but I think, in making judgments, we’re getting into tricky territory.” — Margaret MacMillan
- “You can only avoid responsibility for so long. The catalyst ended up being the law coming down and finally saying, ‘You guys suspended judgment and that’s fine, because we’re not.'” — Rosario Dawson
- “Good judgment comes from experience. Sometimes, experience comes from bad judgment.” — Christian Slater
- “As a kid I quite fancied the romantic, Bohemian idea of being an artist. I expect I thought I could escape from the difficulties of maths and spelling. Maybe I thought I would avoid the judgment of the establishment.” — Peter Wright
- “Mentors can gain so much wisdom from really focusing on what their mentees are saying. Once a person knows you’re truly listening, both parties will establish trust over time that will allow the mentee to open up and express themselves openly without fear of judgment.” — Tobias Harris
- “My judgment is not good when I am on a book tour. I am not thinking about it that much. What happens is I will go back home. I have a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old and a wife who is now taking care of them who is wondering where her husband is.” — Michael Lewis
- “We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgment on the past.” — Douglas Hurd
- “I’m more concerned with getting them to find and strengthen their original voice as writers rather than imposing my own subjective tastes, judgments or sensibility on the project.” — Douglas Wood
- “John the Baptist, who we are told was related by blood to Jesus, was preaching the impending judgment of God, urging repentance and moral reform, and baptizing in the Jordan River those who responded.” — Kenneth Scott Latourette
- “The stage is a place where I can be wholly myself. Even though you’re in front of people almost to be judged, it is a place without judgment.” — Florence Welch
- “I don’t own a radio. I listen to everything through apps or on my iPhone. And then I download the shows I like. Shows like ‘Fresh Air’, ‘Radiolab’, ‘Snap judgment’, all those shows.” — Ira Glass
- “As an actor, I’ve given up judgment of evil, as long as it’s human evil – we have to see ourselves for what we really are, and we’re capable of horrific things.” — John Carroll Lynch
Jon Kabat-Zinn Video About Non-Judgment
Final Thoughts About Non-Judgmental Phrases and Quotes
Uprooting negative thinking and a judgmental attitude takes discipline and awareness. You have to be able to distinguish between unwarranted and well-justified criticism you give yourself or others.
If you feel overwhelmed, come back and read these quotes — they will ground you in the present moment and help you see things with more clarity. I hope these non-judgmental quotes can help you on your meditation journey. Complement with Judgment Detox by Gabrielle Bernstein and then revisit our article on how to stop negative thoughts with mindfulness and how to prevent a buildup of negative energy in your body and mind.
And if you want more inspirational quotes to brighten up your day, check out these articles:
100 trust quotes to improve mindfulness
100 patience quotes to deepen your meditation practice
100 acceptance quotes to improve mindfulness
100 letting go quotes to get unstuck and move on
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I’m a freelance writer and mindfulness advocate behind this blog. I started my meditation practice in 2014, and in 2017 I launched this website to share what I learn with others. Here are the three things you can do here:
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