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

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

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

They condemn what they do not understand.

Cicero, Marcus T.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

W. H. Auden

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

Richard Pryor

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

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

Hampton, Christopher

I know I'm never as good or bad as one single performance. I've never believed in my critics or my worshippers, and I've always been able to leave the game at the arena.

Barkley, Charles

10.

A louse in the locks of literature.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

11.

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

France, Anatole

12.

Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility.

Sontag, Susan

13.

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

Erasmus, Desiderius

14.

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

Fuller, Margaret

15.

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

Lowell, James Russell

16.

Not even the most powerful organs of the press, including Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times, can discover a new artist or certify his work and make it stick. They can only bring you the scores.

Wolfe, Thomas

17.

Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.

Benjamin, Walter

18.

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

Smith, Sydney

19.

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

20.

The whole effort of a sincere man is to erect his personal impressions into laws.

Gourmont, Remy De

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Proverb, Chinese

24.

Culture is only true when implicitly critical, and the mind which forgets this revenges itself in the critics it breeds. Criticism is an indispensable element of culture.

Adorno, Theodor W.

25.

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

26.

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

Buxton, Charles

27.

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

Zeuxis

28.

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

Steinbeck, John

29.

Neither praise or blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe, and honestly to award. These are the true aims and duties of criticism.

Simms, William Gilmore

30.

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

Aikman, Leo

31.

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

32.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

33.

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.

Dale Carnegie

34.

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

35.

Critical remarks are only made by people who love you.

Mayor, Federico

36.

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

Wilde, Oscar

37.

A friend is a lot of things, but a critic isn't.

Williams, Bern

38.

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

Wilde, Oscar

39.

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

40.

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

41.

They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own.

Porchia, Antonio

42.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.

Johnson, Samuel

43.

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

Mascotte, John P.

44.

Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

45.

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

Buxton, Charles

46.

There's a fine line between participation and mockery.