Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

- Wilde, Oscar

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

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

Burns, Robert

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

Carlyle, Thomas

Hardly a book of human worth, be it heaven's own secret, is honestly placed before the reader; it is either shunned, given a Periclean funeral oration in a hundred and fifty words, or interred in the potter's field of the newspapers back pages.

Dahlberg, Edward

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

Simms, William Gilmore

It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.

Mencken, H. L.

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

Dale Carnegie

A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

Murdoch, Iris

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.

10.

The text is merely one of the contexts of a piece of literature, its lexical or verbal one, no more or less important than the sociological, psychological, historical, anthropological or generic.

Fiedler, Leslie

11.

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.

12.

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

13.

I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.

Aragon, Louis

14.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

15.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

Updike, John

16.

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

17.

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

Flagg, Fannie

18.

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

Steinbeck, John

19.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

20.

Most of us are umpires at heart; we like to call balls and strikes on somebody else.

Aikman, Leo

21.

Critics are those who have failed in literature and art.

Disraeli, Benjamin

22.

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

Cicero, Marcus T.

23.

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

West, Rebecca

24.

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

Gourmont, Remy De

25.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

26.

Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.

Johnson, Samuel

27.

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

28.

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

Cioran, E. M.

29.

I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.

Connolly, Cyril

30.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

31.

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

Jones, Franklin P.

32.

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

33.

The literary critic, or the critic of any other specific form of artistic expression, may detach himself from the world for as long as the work of art he is contemplating appears to do the same.

James, Clive

34.

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

35.

Critical remarks are only made by people who love you.

Mayor, Federico

36.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

37.

There are two modes of criticism. One which crushes to earth without mercy all the humble buds of Phantasy, all the plants that, though green and fruitful, are also a prey to insects or have suffered by drought. It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe the weed in its native soil may be a pretty, graceful plant. There is another mode which enters into the natural history of every thing that breathes and lives, which believes no impulse to be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes circumstances, motive and object before it condemns, and believes there is a beauty in natural form, if its law and purpose be understood.

Fuller, Margaret

38.

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

Fuller, Margaret

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Paz, Octavio

44.

Blame is safer than praise.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

45.

You should not say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.

Whistler, James Mcneill

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Hammarskjold, Dag

49.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

50.

They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own.

Porchia, Antonio