Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

Best Quotes about Criticism

No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

For if there is anything to one's praise, it is foolish vanity to be gratified at it, and if it is abuse -- why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or another!

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

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

Gourmont, Remy De

Critical remarks are only made by people who love you.

Mayor, Federico

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

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

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

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

Wilde, Oscar

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

10.

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

Flagg, Fannie

11.

Critics are those who have failed in literature and art.

Disraeli, Benjamin

12.

We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall -- which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.

Carlyle, Thomas

13.

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

14.

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

15.

It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the children one's mature critics often are.

Walker, Alice

16.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

17.

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

Elbert Hubbard

18.

Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

West, Rebecca

19.

Blame is safer than praise.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

20.

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

Nolan, Sir Sidney

21.

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

Simms, William Gilmore

22.

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.

Dale Carnegie

23.

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

24.

Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough or gold in bars. They are traders, and in literature know only the coins that are current. Their critical lab has scales and weights, but neither crucible or touchstone.

Joubert, Joseph

25.

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

Steinbeck, John

26.

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

Mizner, Wilson

27.

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

Hugo, Victor

28.

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.

29.

Having a sharp tongue will cut your throat

30.

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

Mascotte, John P.

31.

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

Fuller, Margaret

32.

The television critic, whatever his pretensions, does not labor in the same vineyard as those he criticizes; his grapes are all sour.

Raphael, Frederic

33.

He who throws dirt always loses ground.

34.

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

35.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

W. H. Auden

36.

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

Kael, Pauline

37.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

38.

Critics are already made.

Byron, Lord

39.

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

40.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

41.

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

42.

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

Paz, Octavio

43.

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

44.

We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unarmed applause.

Narosky, Jose

45.

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

46.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

47.

They condemn what they do not understand.