Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

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

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

Kundera, Milan

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

Ziglar, Zig

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

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.

I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.

Smith, Sydney

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

Conrad, Joseph

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

10.

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.

11.

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

Jones, Franklin P.

12.

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.

13.

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

14.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

15.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.

Johnson, Samuel

16.

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

Proverb, Chinese

17.

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

18.

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

Nunn, Gregory

19.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

20.

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

21.

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

Schlegel, Friedrich

22.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

H. L. Mencken

23.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.

Clurman, Harold

24.

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

25.

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

Byron, Lord

26.

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

27.

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

28.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right. You'll be criticized anyway.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

29.

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

Mascotte, John P.

30.

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

Christopher Hampton

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.

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

James, Henry

33.

The true critic is he who bears within himself the dreams and ideas and feelings of myriad generations, and to whom no form of thought is alien, no emotional impulse obscure.

Wilde, Oscar

34.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world -- though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst -- the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

Sterne, Laurence

35.

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

Kael, Pauline

36.

Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.

Kundera, Milan

37.

Critical remarks are only made by people who love you.

Mayor, Federico

38.

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

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.

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

41.

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

42.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Fox, Dr. Emmit

43.

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

Flagg, Fannie

44.

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

Elbert Hubbard

45.

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

46.

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

Richard Pryor

47.

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

Raphael, Frederic

48.

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

49.

Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins.

Native American Proverb

50.

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

Buxton, Charles