Motivational Quotes

Criticism

Critics are already made.

- Byron, Lord

Best Quotes about Criticism

Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- criticize.

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

Wilde, Oscar

One does not lash hat lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded.

Klee, Paul

Harsh counsels have no effect; they are like hammers which are always repulsed by the anvil.

Helvetius, Claude A.

When a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead of compliments, he forgets that it was not his good judgment, but his charming manners, that won her heart.

Rowland, Helen

When everyone is against you, it means you are absolutely wrong -- or you are absolutely right.

Guinon, Albert

I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, "I wanna grow up and be a critic."

Richard Pryor

Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

10.

The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.

Auden, W. H.

11.

A good review from the critics is just another stay of execution.

Hoffman, Dustin

12.

If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, then ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

13.

In reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are.

Fielding, Henry

14.

Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it.

Rayburn, Sam

15.

The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.

Buxton, Charles

16.

A man must serve his time to every trade save censure -- critics all are ready made.

Byron, Lord

17.

Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.

Orwell, George

18.

What we ask of him is, that he should find out for us more than we can find out for ourselves. He must have the passion of a lover.

Symons, Arthur

19.

A drama critic is a person who surprises the playwright by informing him what he meant.

Mizner, Wilson

20.

A film is just like a muffin. You make it. You put it on the table. One person might say, Oh, I don't like it. One might say it's the best muffin ever made. One might say it's an awful muffin. It's hard for me to say. It's for me to make the muffin.

Washington, Denzel

21.

Satire is often the reflection of a kind of moral nausea.

Briton, Crand

22.

Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.

Bruyere, Jean De La

23.

David Lynch came out of it a genius, and I came out of it a fat girl. I'm sorry that the only comment I get about the part is the way I look. [Commenting on the critics' response to her performance in Blue Velvet]

Rossellini, Isabella

24.

On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.

Wilde, Oscar

25.

Most of us are umpires at heart; we like to call balls and strikes on somebody else.

Aikman, Leo

26.

Critics are already made.

Byron, Lord

27.

Critics are those who have failed in literature and art.

Disraeli, Benjamin

28.

If you burn your neighbors house down, it doesn't make your house look any better.

Holtz, Lou

29.

Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer.

Hutton, R. H.

30.

I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.

Hugo, Victor

31.

Be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.

Bible

32.

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

Meir, Golda

33.

He who throws dirt always loses ground.

34.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.

Clurman, Harold

35.

The literary critic, or the critic of any other specific form of artistic expression, may detach himself from the world for as long as the work of art he is contemplating appears to do the same.

James, Clive

36.

Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however, and you'll condemn them all!

James, Henry

37.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

W. H. Auden

38.

Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.

Pope, Alexander

39.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

40.

A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.

Tynan, Kenneth

41.

A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

Murdoch, Iris

42.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

Updike, John

43.

Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.

Chandler, Raymond

44.

The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D.

Algren, Nelson

45.

Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

Burns, Robert

46.

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

Selye, Hans

47.

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

Proverb, Chinese

48.

The text is merely one of the contexts of a piece of literature, its lexical or verbal one, no more or less important than the sociological, psychological, historical, anthropological or generic.

Fiedler, Leslie

49.

If I care to listen to every criticism, let alone act on them, then this shop may as well be closed for all other businesses. I have learned to do my best, and if the end result is good then I do not care for any criticism, but if the end result is not good, then even the praise of ten angels would not make the difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

50.

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

Kael, Pauline