Motivational Quotes

Criticism

If I make a move, like raise my eyebrows, some critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows?

- Slater, Christian

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

Proverb, German

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

Helvetius, Claude A.

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

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

Christopher Hampton

The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D.

Algren, Nelson

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Mascotte, John P.

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

10.

The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.

Buxton, Charles

11.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

12.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

Selye, Hans

14.

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

Meir, Golda

15.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

16.

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

17.

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

Conrad, Joseph

18.

There's a fine line between participation and mockery.

Adams, Scott

19.

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

Elbert Hubbard

20.

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

Kael, Pauline

21.

Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!

Jean Sibelius

22.

The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art -- and, by analogy, our own experience -- more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.

Sontag, Susan

23.

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

Fielding, Henry

24.

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.

25.

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

26.

Blame is safer than praise.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

27.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

28.

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

Shenstone, William

29.

There has never been a statue erected to honor a critic.

Ziglar, Zig

30.

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

Carruthers, Charles Edwin

31.

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

32.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Fox, Dr. Emmit

33.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.

Hemingway, Ernest

39.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

W. H. Auden

40.

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

Baudrillard, Jean

41.

In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.

Sontag, Susan

42.

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

Wilde, Oscar

43.

Each generation produces its squad of moderns with peashooters to attack Gibraltar.

Pollock, Channing

44.

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

Steinbeck, John

45.

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

Pope, Alexander

46.

A sneer is the weapon of the weak.

Lowell, James Russell

47.

Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.

Chandler, Raymond

48.

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

Cocteau, Jean

49.

We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unarmed applause.

Narosky, Jose

50.

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

Paz, Octavio