"Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes"...
2007-09-15 17:15:08 · 10 answers · asked by ~electra~ 4 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Sounds like something W.C. Fields would say, a great comedian of the vaudeville days who said outrageous things quite seriously...
it's a play on the older phrase,"before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes"...or experience some of what their life is like. The rest is the play, the joke on the solemn beginning...then you have the shoes, ha ha.
EDIT: Yes, it's somewhat sarcastic, but mostly an out and out joke. hey electra, ;-}
2007-09-15 17:23:06 · answer #1 · answered by LK 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Never criticize anyone until you put yourself in their place? I suppose the idea is that you must empathize more & criticize less. And that you shouldn't talk unless you know from experience that in the other person's place, under the same pressures you would have made better choices.
This quotation or something equivalent are often thrown at me. Am accused of being too critical. Seems I've been that way since early childhood. A teacher wrote in one of my second grade reports that I would do much better if I spent less time correcting the other student's work. It's true. Have memories of teachers yelling at me to go back to my seat when I'd be standing behind one of my friends, telling him or her what they're doing wrong.It started with my friends asking for my help but then it became a habit.
2007-09-16 00:25:03 · answer #2 · answered by Rob Harlow 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's a joke implying if you are picking on someone, make sure you are at a distance when picking on a person so they don't hit you or something, and you end up with their shoes which could be pretty cool and profitable. The original version was to advise the person criticizing that unless they have gone through the same steps as the person they are picking on, they shouldn't be picking on them. Hope this helps!!!
2007-09-16 00:30:02 · answer #3 · answered by roritr2005 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The way we are raised and the experiences we have in life make the person that we become in life. Some have it harder in life than others and this expression only askes that before you judge, imagine yourself in their position ("shoes") and only for a single mile of their journey, for that would be more than enough for you to know not to judge them.
2007-09-16 01:26:38 · answer #4 · answered by Charlie 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
LJK nailed it. First sentence is the actual saying. Great advice, don't criticize until you've tried to see things from anther's point of view.
I think the addendum though is lolfoma funny. It's what a complete moron would make of the first sentence. It's Homer Simpson explaining things to Bart.
It's very much in the spirit of Al Frankin from SNL. Here's another saying in the same ilk.
"I'd like to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather; not shrieking in horror like his passengers."
2007-09-16 01:01:10 · answer #5 · answered by Phoenix Quill 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Understand someone before you criticize them, but once you understand them, you might not feel like criticizing them anymore.
2007-09-16 01:22:14 · answer #6 · answered by mouse 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Everyone kinda hit it on the head. The first part is self explanatory; the second simply states, if you can't do the first, be far away and take away their means to make you pay!
2007-09-16 01:40:55 · answer #7 · answered by mackctm 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well the first part means that you shouldnt judge a person because you have no idea what they have been through. and the second part means .... somethine sarcastic.
2007-09-16 00:22:46 · answer #8 · answered by myusedromance13 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
that they dont hear u criticizing them
2007-09-16 00:23:32 · answer #9 · answered by grk_skater_lb 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
your an idiot
its a joke
learn to laugh you emo child
2007-09-16 00:23:31 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋