Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

- Hill, Napoleon

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

James, Clive

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

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

Lowell, James Russell

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

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

Hill, Napoleon

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

Elbert Hubbard

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

Maugham, W. Somerset

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

Pollock, Channing

10.

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

11.

Critics are those who have failed in literature and art.

Disraeli, Benjamin

12.

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

Fuller, Margaret

13.

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

14.

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

15.

A negative judgment gives you more satisfaction than praise, provided it smacks of jealousy.

Baudrillard, Jean

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

Zeuxis

20.

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

Williams, Bern

21.

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

Wilde, Oscar

22.

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs.

Picasso, Pablo

23.

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

Proverb, Chinese

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Johnson, Samuel

27.

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

Tynan, Kenneth

28.

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

Buxton, Charles

29.

Satire is often the reflection of a kind of moral nausea.

Briton, Crand

30.

If I make a move, like raise my eyebrows, some critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows?

Slater, Christian

31.

Critics are already made.

Byron, Lord

32.

The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art -- and, by analogy, our own experience -- more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.

Sontag, Susan

33.

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

Wilde, Oscar

34.

In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.

Congreve, William

35.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

36.

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

37.

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

38.

It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.

Baudelaire, Charles

39.

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.

40.

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

41.

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

Steinbeck, John

42.

Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!

Jean Sibelius

43.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

44.

A man generally has the good or ill qualities he attributes to mankind.

Shenstone, William

45.

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

Ziglar, Zig

46.

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

Nolan, Sir Sidney

47.

David Lynch came out of it a genius, and I came out of it a fat girl. I'm sorry that the only comment I get about the part is the way I look. [Commenting on the critics' response to her performance in Blue Velvet]

Rossellini, Isabella

48.

Harsh counsels have no effect; they are like hammers which are always repulsed by the anvil.

Helvetius, Claude A.

49.

One of the grotesqueries of present-day American life is the amount of reasoning that goes into displaying the wisdom secreted in bad movies while proving that modern art is meaningless. They have put into practice the notion that a bad art work cleverly interpreted according to some obscure Method is more rewarding than a masterpiece wrapped in silence.

Rosenberg, Harold

50.

A sneer is the weapon of the weak.

Lowell, James Russell