Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

Hugo, Victor

Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job. It not only involves praising trash but constantly inventing reactions towards books about which one has no spontaneous feeling whatever.

Orwell, George

There are two insults no human will endure. The assertion that he has no sense of humor and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.

Lewis, Sinclair

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

W. H. Auden

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

Rostand, Jean

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

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

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

H. L. Mencken

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

Fuller, Margaret

10.

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

Richard Pryor

11.

As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks.

James, Clive

12.

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

Selye, Hans

13.

Criticism should be a casual conversation.

Auden, W. H.

14.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

15.

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

Simms, William Gilmore

16.

No sadder proof can be given of a person's own tiny stature, than their disbelief in great people.

Carlyle, Thomas

17.

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

18.

A critic is a man who knows the way, but can't drive the car.

Tynan, Kenneth

19.

Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at.

20.

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

Conrad, Joseph

21.

Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

Keats, John

22.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

23.

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

Proverb, Chinese

24.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

25.

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

Mascotte, John P.

26.

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.

27.

A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.

Schlegel, Friedrich

28.

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

Kundera, Milan

29.

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

30.

The great critic must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.

Maugham, W. Somerset

31.

Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

32.

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

Nolan, Sir Sidney

33.

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

West, Rebecca

34.

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

Erasmus, Desiderius

35.

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

Franklin P. Jones

36.

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

37.

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

Franklin, Benjamin

38.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

39.

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

Christopher Hampton

40.

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

41.

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

Helvetius, Claude A.

42.

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

Moliere

43.

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.

44.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

Thoreau, Henry David

45.

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

Steinbeck, John

46.

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

Wilde, Oscar

47.

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

Burns, Robert

48.

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

49.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Johnson, Samuel

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