Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

Little, Lynn M.

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

Helvetius, Claude A.

Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.

Berger, John

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

Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

Keats, John

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

Wilde, Oscar

A man generally has the good or ill qualities he attributes to mankind.

Shenstone, William

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

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

Mascotte, John P.

10.

Having a sharp tongue will cut your throat

11.

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

12.

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

Nunn, Gregory

13.

Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you're two steps ahead!

Flagg, Fannie

14.

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

15.

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

Proverb, German

16.

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

Raphael, Frederic

17.

The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear -- and even, in certain respects, would be -- the most modern of critical movements.

Man, Paul De

18.

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

19.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

20.

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

Byron, Lord

21.

You should never assume contempt for that which it is not very manifest that you have it in your power to possess, nor does a wit ever make a more contemptible figure than when, in attempting satire, he shows that he does not understand that which he would make the subject of his ridicule.

Melbourne, Lord

22.

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

23.

Men over forty are no judges of a book written in a new spirit.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

24.

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

25.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

26.

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

27.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

28.

As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks.

James, Clive

29.

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

30.

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

Briton, Crand

31.

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

32.

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

Churchill, Charles

33.

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

Hampton, Christopher

34.

Criticism should be a casual conversation.

Auden, W. H.

35.

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

Ziglar, Zig

36.

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

Fuller, Margaret

37.

Blame is safer than praise.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

38.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Kurt Vonnegut

39.

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

Rayburn, Sam

40.

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

Mcclung, Nellie

41.

What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.

Cocteau, Jean

42.

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

43.

Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough or gold in bars. They are traders, and in literature know only the coins that are current. Their critical lab has scales and weights, but neither crucible or touchstone.

Joubert, Joseph

44.

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world -- in order to set up a shadow world of meanings.

Sontag, Susan

45.

Critics are already made.

Byron, Lord

46.

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

Jones, Franklin P.

47.

No matter how well you perform there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

48.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

49.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

50.

Reviewers are usually people who would have been, poets, historians, biographer, if they could. They have tried their talents at one thing or another and have failed; therefore they turn critic.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor