Motivational Quotes

Criticism

I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.

- Connolly, Cyril

Best Quotes about Criticism

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

Dahlberg, Edward

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

Steinbeck, John

To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one's own.

James, Henry

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

Selye, Hans

If what they are saying about you is true, mend your ways. If it isn't true, forget it, and go on and serve the Lord.

Ironside, H. A.

You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.

Maugham, W. Somerset

There is an air of last things, a brooding sense of impending annihilation, about so much deconstructive activity, in so many of its guises; it is not merely postmodernist but preapocalyptic.

Lehman, David

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

Mascotte, John P.

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

Proverb, German

10.

The true critic is he who bears within himself the dreams and ideas and feelings of myriad generations, and to whom no form of thought is alien, no emotional impulse obscure.

Wilde, Oscar

11.

Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, they damn those authors whom they never read.

Churchill, Charles

12.

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

Maugham, W. Somerset

13.

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

14.

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

Ziglar, Zig

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Buxton, Charles

18.

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

19.

Some people are always critical of vague statements. I tend rather to be critical of precise statements; they are the only ones which can correctly be labeled wrong.

Smullyan, Raymond

20.

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

Mizner, Wilson

21.

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

22.

It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the children one's mature critics often are.

Walker, Alice

23.

Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!

Jean Sibelius

24.

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs.

Picasso, Pablo

25.

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

26.

Criticism of others is futile and if you indulge in it often you should be warned that it can be fatal to your career.

Carnegie, Dale

27.

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

Turner, Ted

28.

A sneer is the weapon of the weak.

Lowell, James Russell

29.

He cannot be strict in judging, who does not wish others to be strict judges of himself.

Cicero, Marcus T.

30.

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

Guinon, Albert

31.

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.

32.

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

33.

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

34.

They condemn what they do not understand.

Cicero, Marcus T.

35.

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

36.

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

Dahlberg, Edward

37.

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

Nunn, Gregory

38.

We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unarmed applause.

Narosky, Jose

39.

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

40.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture; it's a really stupid thing to want to do.

Costello, Elvis

41.

Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.

Miller, Henry

42.

A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send checks to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas.

Frye, Northrop

43.

In judging others, folks will work overtime for no pay.

Carruthers, Charles Edwin

44.

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

Updike, John

45.

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

Proverb, Chinese

46.

You're never s good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.

Holtz, Lou

47.

Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.

Chandler, Raymond

48.

The easiest thing a human being can do is to criticize another human being.

Little, Lynn M.

49.

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

Hampton, Christopher

50.

The great critic must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.

Maugham, W. Somerset