Motivational Quotes

Criticism

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

- Simms, William Gilmore

Best Quotes about Criticism

You should never assume contempt for that which it is not very manifest that you have it in your power to possess, nor does a wit ever make a more contemptible figure than when, in attempting satire, he shows that he does not understand that which he would make the subject of his ridicule.

Melbourne, Lord

Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.

Benjamin, Walter

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

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

Rostand, Jean

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

Proverb, Chinese

Criticism should be a casual conversation.

Auden, W. H.

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

Proverb, Chinese

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.

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

Christopher Hampton

10.

Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer.

Hutton, R. H.

11.

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

Kael, Pauline

12.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

H. L. Mencken

13.

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

Cioran, E. M.

14.

Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.

Edwards, Tryon

15.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

16.

One ought to examine himself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.

Moliere

17.

All my life people have said that I wasn't going to make it.

Turner, Ted

18.

Critics are already made.

Byron, Lord

19.

Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.

Hammarskjold, Dag

20.

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

21.

When everyone is against you, it means you are absolutely wrong -- or you are absolutely right.

Guinon, Albert

22.

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

Mcclung, Nellie

23.

I know I'm never as good or bad as one single performance. I've never believed in my critics or my worshippers, and I've always been able to leave the game at the arena.

Barkley, Charles

24.

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

Fuller, Margaret

25.

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

Steinbeck, John

26.

No matter how well you perform there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

27.

Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.

Bruyere, Jean De La

28.

Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

Burns, Robert

29.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

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.

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

32.

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

Rayburn, Sam

33.

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

Maugham, W. Somerset

34.

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

Byron, Lord

35.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

36.

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

Richard Pryor

37.

Critics are usually kinder to cheaper movies than to those they perceive to be big Hollywood releases. They cut you a lot more slack if you spend less money, which makes no sense.

Coen, Ethan

38.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Steinbeck, John

42.

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.

43.

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

Hampton, Christopher

44.

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

45.

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

Cocteau, Jean

46.

Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.

Henry Fielding

47.

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

Nunn, Gregory

48.

Writing prejudicial, off-putting reviews is a precise exercise in applied black magic. The reviewer can draw free-floating disagreeable associations to a book by implying that the book is completely unimportant without saying exactly why, and carefully avoiding any clear images that could capture the reader's full attention.

Burroughs, William S.

49.

What we ask of him is, that he should find out for us more than we can find out for ourselves. He must have the passion of a lover.

Symons, Arthur

50.

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