Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

- Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

Buxton, Charles

Self-laudation abounds among the unpolished, but nothing can stamp a man more sharply as ill-bred.

Buxton, Charles

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

Byron, Lord

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Epictetus

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

Moliere

He who throws dirt always loses ground.

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.

Maugham, W. Somerset

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

Critics are already made.

Byron, Lord

10.

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

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

11.

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

Helvetius, Claude A.

12.

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

Zeuxis

13.

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

Nunn, Gregory

14.

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

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

15.

If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, then ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

16.

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

Mcclung, Nellie

17.

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

Proverb, Chinese

18.

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

19.

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

Flagg, Fannie

20.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water's edge

Hill, Napoleon

21.

Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

22.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

23.

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

24.

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

Gourmont, Remy De

25.

To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one's own.

James, Henry

26.

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

Porchia, Antonio

27.

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

28.

Neither praise or blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe, and honestly to award. These are the true aims and duties of criticism.

Simms, William Gilmore

29.

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

Hammarskjold, Dag

30.

One does not lash hat lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded.

Klee, Paul

31.

Let me walk three weeks in the footsteps of my enemy, carry the same burden, have the same trials as he, before I say one word to criticize.

32.

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

Burns, Robert

33.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

34.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

35.

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

36.

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

Mascotte, John P.

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Kael, Pauline

40.

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

Steinbeck, John

41.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

W. H. Auden

42.

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

43.

The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything. The person of synthetic or constructive intellect, in almost nothing.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

44.

The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.

Benjamin, Walter

45.

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

46.

Not even the most powerful organs of the press, including Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times, can discover a new artist or certify his work and make it stick. They can only bring you the scores.

Wolfe, Thomas

47.

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

48.

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

Shenstone, William

49.

Critics are those who have failed in literature and art.

Disraeli, Benjamin

50.

It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.