Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

Best Quotes about Criticism

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

Proverb, German

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

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

Hill, Napoleon

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

Mascotte, John P.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Fuller, Margaret

When a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead of compliments, he forgets that it was not his good judgment, but his charming manners, that won her heart.

Rowland, Helen

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

Hoffman, Dustin

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

10.

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

Simms, William Gilmore

11.

The easiest thing a human being can do is to criticize another human being.

Little, Lynn M.

12.

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

Aikman, Leo

13.

Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you'll be a mile away and have his shoes.

14.

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

15.

He who throws dirt always loses ground.

16.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

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

Porchia, Antonio

20.

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

Collins, Jackie

21.

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

Selye, Hans

22.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

23.

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

Updike, John

24.

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

25.

The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear -- and even, in certain respects, would be -- the most modern of critical movements.

Man, Paul De

26.

The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.

Auden, W. H.

27.

A friend is a lot of things, but a critic isn't.

Williams, Bern

28.

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

Rostand, Jean

29.

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.

30.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Proverb, Chinese

36.

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

37.

Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.

Benjamin, Walter

38.

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

Christopher Hampton

39.

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

Steinbeck, John

40.

A louse in the locks of literature.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

41.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

42.

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

43.

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

44.

Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.

Miller, Henry

45.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

46.

What we ask of him is, that he should find out for us more than we can find out for ourselves. He must have the passion of a lover.

Symons, Arthur

47.

The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.

France, Anatole

48.

David Lynch came out of it a genius, and I came out of it a fat girl. I'm sorry that the only comment I get about the part is the way I look. [Commenting on the critics' response to her performance in Blue Velvet]

Rossellini, Isabella

49.

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

50.

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