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

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

Proverb, Chinese

No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.

Harold Rosenberg

The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.

La Bruyere, Jean De

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

Lowell, James Russell

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

Steinbeck, John

Every writer is necessarily a critic -- that is, each sentence is a skeleton accompanied by enormous activity of rejection; and each selection is governed by general principles concerning truth, force, beauty, and so on. The critic that is in every fabulist is like the iceberg -- nine-tenths of him is under water.

Wilder, Thornton

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

France, Anatole

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

Kundera, Milan

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

Schlegel, Friedrich

10.

The greatest honor that can be paid to the work of art, on its pedestal of ritual display, is to describe it with sensory completeness. We need a science of description. Criticism is ceremonial revivification.

Paglia, Camille

11.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

12.

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

13.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

14.

The literary critic, or the critic of any other specific form of artistic expression, may detach himself from the world for as long as the work of art he is contemplating appears to do the same.

James, Clive

15.

It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

Woolf, Virginia

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

If I care to listen to every criticism, let alone act on them, then this shop may as well be closed for all other businesses. I have learned to do my best, and if the end result is good then I do not care for any criticism, but if the end result is not good, then even the praise of ten angels would not make the difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

19.

Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe

20.

Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

Burns, Robert

21.

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

Jones, Franklin P.

22.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

23.

The best criticism doesn't trap an employee or child in a dead end. It gives them an escape route.

24.

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

Holtz, Lou

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Updike, John

29.

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

Hampton, Christopher

30.

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

31.

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

32.

We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unarmed applause.

Narosky, Jose

33.

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

Elbert Hubbard

34.

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

Nolan, Sir Sidney

35.

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

36.

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

Maugham, W. Somerset

37.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture; it's a really stupid thing to want to do.

Costello, Elvis

38.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

39.

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

Zeuxis

40.

Critical remarks are only made by people who love you.

Mayor, Federico

41.

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

Williams, Bern

42.

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.

43.

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

Benjamin, Walter

44.

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.

45.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

W. H. Auden

46.

Having a sharp tongue will cut your throat

47.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

48.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Epictetus

49.

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

50.

No sadder proof can be given of a person's own tiny stature, than their disbelief in great people.

Carlyle, Thomas