Motivational Quotes

Criticism

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

- Christopher Hampton

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

Byron, Lord

Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.

Kundera, Milan

The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event.

Gibbon, Edward

Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

Steinbeck, John

God knows people who are paid to have attitudes toward things, professional critics, make me sick; camp following eunuchs of literature. They won't even whore. They're all virtuous and sterile. And how well meaning and high minded. But they're all camp followers.

Hemingway, Ernest

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.

Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves.

Cioran, E. M.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world -- though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst -- the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

Sterne, Laurence

The television critic, whatever his pretensions, does not labor in the same vineyard as those he criticizes; his grapes are all sour.

Raphael, Frederic

10.

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

11.

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

Hugo, Victor

12.

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

Buxton, Charles

13.

No sadder proof can be given of a person's own tiny stature, than their disbelief in great people.

Carlyle, Thomas

14.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Epictetus

15.

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.

Franklin P. Jones

16.

There has never been a statue erected to honor a critic.

Ziglar, Zig

17.

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

18.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Fox, Dr. Emmit

19.

All the world's a stage, and all the clergymen critics.

Nunn, Gregory

20.

Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl.

Mcclung, Nellie

21.

When subjected to the rain of criticism, let?s not curse the rain. Let?s accept it as a part of life. Let?s remember that the more criticism we can successfully handle, the more zest we will experience in our lives.

Sinha, Shall

22.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

23.

Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at.

24.

The greatest honor that can be paid to the work of art, on its pedestal of ritual display, is to describe it with sensory completeness. We need a science of description. Criticism is ceremonial revivification.

Paglia, Camille

25.

Self-laudation abounds among the unpolished, but nothing can stamp a man more sharply as ill-bred.

Buxton, Charles

26.

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

Proverb, German

27.

Let me walk three weeks in the footsteps of my enemy, carry the same burden, have the same trials as he, before I say one word to criticize.

28.

Never make the mistake of assuming the critters will beat a path to your door.

Mascotte, John P.

29.

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs.

Hampton, Christopher

30.

They condemn what they do not understand.

Cicero, Marcus T.

31.

Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.

Fuller, Margaret

32.

I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.

Smith, Sydney

33.

That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography.

Wilde, Oscar

34.

Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another.

Erasmus, Desiderius

35.

The best criticism doesn't trap an employee or child in a dead end. It gives them an escape route.

36.

Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical accidents, soon forgotten.

Kundera, Milan

37.

I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.

Pound, Ezra

38.

For if there is anything to one's praise, it is foolish vanity to be gratified at it, and if it is abuse -- why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or another!

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

39.

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

James, Henry

40.

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.

41.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

42.

All my life people have said that I wasn't going to make it.

Turner, Ted

43.

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

Briton, Crand

44.

In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.

Congreve, William

45.

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

46.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right. You'll be criticized anyway.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

47.

To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

Elbert Hubbard

48.

Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you'll be a mile away and have his shoes.

49.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

Hubbard, Elbert