Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

- Cioran, E. M.

Best Quotes about Criticism

You should not say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.

Whistler, James Mcneill

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

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

Man, Paul De

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Hill, Napoleon

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

Gourmont, Remy De

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

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

Fuller, Margaret

10.

I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.

Aragon, Louis

11.

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

Schlegel, Friedrich

12.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Fox, Dr. Emmit

13.

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

Byron, Lord

14.

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

Updike, John

15.

A louse in the locks of literature.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

16.

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

Selye, Hans

17.

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

Dale Carnegie

18.

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

19.

Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

20.

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

21.

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

Erasmus, Desiderius

22.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

Thoreau, Henry David

23.

Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.

Johnson, Samuel

24.

In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.

Sontag, Susan

25.

The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.

Benjamin, Walter

26.

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

Moliere

27.

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

28.

In an age of unscrupulous and shameless book-making, it is a duty to give notice of the rubbish that cumbers the ground. There is no credit, no real power required for this task. It is the work of an intellectual scavenger, and far from being specially honorable.

Hutton, R. H.

29.

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

Little, Lynn M.

30.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

31.

A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

Murdoch, Iris

32.

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

Lowell, James Russell

33.

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

James, Clive

34.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.

Clurman, Harold

35.

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

36.

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.

37.

It is wrong to be harsh with the New York critics, unless one admits in the same breath that it is a condition of their existence that they should write entertainingly about something which is rarely worth writing about at all.

Chandler, Raymond

38.

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

Mizner, Wilson

39.

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

Ziglar, Zig

40.

Critics are usually kinder to cheaper movies than to those they perceive to be big Hollywood releases. They cut you a lot more slack if you spend less money, which makes no sense.

Coen, Ethan

41.

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

42.

There's a fine line between participation and mockery.

Adams, Scott

43.

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

Tynan, Kenneth

44.

Give me the critic bred in Nature's school, who neither talks by rote, nor thinks by rule; who feeling's honest dictates still obeys, and dares, without a precedent, to praise.

Shee, Sir Martin Archer

45.

Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

Lawrence, D. H.

46.

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.

47.

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

Hammarskjold, Dag

48.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Johnson, Samuel

49.

If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, then ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

50.

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

Zeuxis