Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

- Hoffman, Dustin

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

Richard Pryor

Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

Critical remarks are only made by people who love you.

Mayor, Federico

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

Maugham, W. Somerset

Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it.

Rayburn, Sam

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

Erasmus, Desiderius

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

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

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

10.

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

Byron, Lord

11.

Literary criticism can be no more than a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the book he is criticizing. Criticism can never be a science: it is, in the first place, much too personal, and in the second, it is concerned with values that science ignores. The touchstone is emotion, not reason. We judge a work of art by its effect on our sincere and vital emotion, and nothing else. All the critical twiddle-twaddle about style and form, all this pseudoscientific classifying and analyzing of books in an imitation-botanical fashion, is mere impertinence and mostly dull jargon.

Lawrence, D. H.

12.

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

13.

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

Cioran, E. M.

14.

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.

15.

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

Simms, William Gilmore

16.

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

17.

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

Proverb, Chinese

18.

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

19.

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

20.

Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at.

21.

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

22.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

23.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

24.

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

Tynan, Kenneth

25.

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

26.

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

27.

I remember when I was in college, people told me I couldn't play in the NBA. There's always somebody saying you can't do it, and those people have to be ignored.

Cartwright, Bill

28.

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.

Conrad, Joseph

29.

Strike the dog dead, it's but a critic!

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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.

I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.

Connolly, Cyril

32.

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

33.

We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unarmed applause.

Narosky, Jose

34.

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

Kundera, Milan

35.

It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.

Mencken, H. L.

36.

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

Mascotte, John P.

37.

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

Aikman, Leo

38.

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

Lowell, James Russell

39.

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

Wilde, Oscar

40.

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

41.

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

Clurman, Harold

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.

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

Wilde, Oscar

44.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

45.

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

Mcclung, Nellie

46.

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.

47.

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

Briton, Crand

48.

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

Christopher Hampton

49.

A louse in the locks of literature.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

50.

Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins.