Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

- Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

Hill, Napoleon

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

In judging others, folks will work overtime for no pay.

Carruthers, Charles Edwin

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

Dahlberg, Edward

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.

One does not lash hat lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded.

Klee, Paul

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

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

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

Benjamin Disraeli

10.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

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

12.

Having a sharp tongue will cut your throat

13.

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

Franklin P. Jones

14.

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

Conrad, Joseph

15.

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

Steinbeck, John

16.

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

Williams, Bern

17.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

18.

They condemn what they do not understand.

Cicero, Marcus T.

19.

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

Beecher, Henry Ward

20.

Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

21.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

Criticism should be a casual conversation.

Auden, W. H.

23.

Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.

Miller, Henry

24.

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

Cioran, E. M.

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

29.

Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.

Rostand, Jean

30.

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

31.

Blame is safer than praise.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

32.

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

Little, Lynn M.

33.

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.

34.

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

Briton, Crand

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.

Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

Steinbeck, John

37.

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

38.

The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.

Auden, W. H.

39.

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

40.

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.

41.

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

Kundera, Milan

42.

If what they are saying about you is true, mend your ways. If it isn't true, forget it, and go on and serve the Lord.

Ironside, H. A.

43.

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

44.

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

Native American Proverb

45.

We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unarmed applause.

Narosky, Jose

46.

A louse in the locks of literature.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

47.

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

France, Anatole

48.

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

Cocteau, Jean

49.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

50.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.

Johnson, Samuel