Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

Best Quotes about Criticism

We have been educated to such a fine -- or dull -- point that we are incapable of enjoying something new, something different, until we are first told what it's all about. We don't trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. In short, the blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way.

Miller, Henry

You know lots of criticism is written by characters who are very academic and think it is a sign you are worthless if you make jokes or kid or even clown. I wouldn't kid Our Lord if he was on the cross. But I would attempt a joke with him if I ran into him chasing the money changers out of the temple.

Hemingway, Ernest

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Fox, Dr. Emmit

The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.

France, Anatole

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

Holtz, Lou

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

Proverb, German

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

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

Rayburn, Sam

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

Mizner, Wilson

10.

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

Franklin P. Jones

11.

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

Kundera, Milan

12.

There are two modes of criticism. One which crushes to earth without mercy all the humble buds of Phantasy, all the plants that, though green and fruitful, are also a prey to insects or have suffered by drought. It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe the weed in its native soil may be a pretty, graceful plant. There is another mode which enters into the natural history of every thing that breathes and lives, which believes no impulse to be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes circumstances, motive and object before it condemns, and believes there is a beauty in natural form, if its law and purpose be understood.

Fuller, Margaret

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

James, Clive

16.

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

17.

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.

Conrad, Joseph

18.

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

Kael, Pauline

19.

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

20.

Abuse if you slight it, will gradually die away; but if you show yourself irritated, you will be thought to have deserved it.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

21.

Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.

Hammarskjold, Dag

22.

A critic is a man who knows the way, but can't drive the car.

Tynan, Kenneth

23.

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

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

24.

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

25.

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

Fuller, Margaret

26.

Each generation produces its squad of moderns with peashooters to attack Gibraltar.

Pollock, Channing

27.

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

Cocteau, Jean

28.

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

Franklin, Benjamin

29.

There are two insults no human will endure. The assertion that he has no sense of humor and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.

Lewis, Sinclair

30.

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.

31.

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

Selye, Hans

32.

One ought to examine himself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.

Moliere

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.

A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.

Schlegel, Friedrich

35.

Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.

Edwards, Tryon

36.

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

Mcclung, Nellie

37.

Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead.

Proverb, Chinese

38.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

H. L. Mencken

39.

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

40.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

41.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water's edge

Hill, Napoleon

42.

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

Byron, Lord

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

A louse in the locks of literature.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

47.

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

Carruthers, Charles Edwin

48.

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

Updike, John

49.

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

50.

Hardly a book of human worth, be it heaven's own secret, is honestly placed before the reader; it is either shunned, given a Periclean funeral oration in a hundred and fifty words, or interred in the potter's field of the newspapers back pages.

Dahlberg, Edward