Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

- Fuller, Margaret

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

Mcclung, Nellie

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

France, Anatole

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world -- though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst -- the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

Sterne, Laurence

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

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

Churchill, Winston

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

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

No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

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

Cocteau, Jean

10.

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

Ziglar, Zig

11.

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

Little, Lynn M.

12.

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

Updike, John

13.

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

Holtz, Lou

14.

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

15.

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

16.

We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unarmed applause.

Narosky, Jose

17.

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

Pollock, Channing

18.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

19.

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

Maugham, W. Somerset

20.

The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything. The person of synthetic or constructive intellect, in almost nothing.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

21.

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

22.

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

Hampton, Christopher

23.

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

24.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

25.

Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.

Pope, Alexander

26.

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

27.

They condemn what they do not understand.

Cicero, Marcus T.

28.

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

29.

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

30.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

W. H. Auden

31.

Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however, and you'll condemn them all!

James, Henry

32.

A sneer is the weapon of the weak.

Lowell, James Russell

33.

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

Elbert Hubbard

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Kael, Pauline

37.

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

38.

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.

39.

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

Fuller, Margaret

40.

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

41.

Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

42.

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

43.

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

44.

When the critics come around it's always too late.

Nolan, Sir Sidney

45.

Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

West, Rebecca

46.

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

47.

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

Byron, Lord

48.

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

Johnson, Samuel

49.

He who throws dirt always loses ground.

50.

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

Guinon, Albert