Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

Best Quotes about Criticism

The whole effort of a sincere man is to erect his personal impressions into laws.

Gourmont, Remy De

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.

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

Proverb, German

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world -- in order to set up a shadow world of meanings.

Sontag, Susan

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

Rostand, Jean

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

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

Baudrillard, Jean

Criticism should be a casual conversation.

Auden, W. H.

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

Selye, Hans

10.

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

Little, Lynn M.

11.

You should not say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.

Whistler, James Mcneill

12.

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

Pope, Alexander

13.

A drama critic is a person who surprises the playwright by informing him what he meant.

Mizner, Wilson

14.

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

Zeuxis

15.

Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, they damn those authors whom they never read.

Churchill, Charles

16.

A louse in the locks of literature.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

17.

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

Shenstone, William

18.

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

19.

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.

20.

Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.

Paz, Octavio

21.

There is an air of last things, a brooding sense of impending annihilation, about so much deconstructive activity, in so many of its guises; it is not merely postmodernist but preapocalyptic.

Lehman, David

22.

Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you're two steps ahead!

Flagg, Fannie

23.

There's a fine line between participation and mockery.

Adams, Scott

24.

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

Helvetius, Claude A.

25.

People want you to be a crazy, out-of-control teen brat. They want you miserable, just like them. They don't want heroes; what they want is to see you fall.

DiCaprio, Leonardo

26.

All the world's a stage, and all the clergymen critics.

Nunn, Gregory

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.

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

Hampton, Christopher

29.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Eleanor Roosevelt

30.

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

Cioran, E. M.

31.

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

32.

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

Franklin P. Jones

33.

Neither praise or blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe, and honestly to award. These are the true aims and duties of criticism.

Simms, William Gilmore

34.

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

Erasmus, Desiderius

35.

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

Carruthers, Charles Edwin

36.

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

Jones, Franklin P.

37.

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

38.

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

Richard Pryor

39.

They condemn what they do not understand.

Cicero, Marcus T.

40.

I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.

Hugo, Victor

41.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

H. L. Mencken

42.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

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

44.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

45.

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.

46.

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.

47.

Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic -- a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.

Wilde, Oscar

48.

Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism.

Fiedler, Leslie

49.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

Disraeli, Benjamin

50.

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

James, Henry