Motivational Quotes

Criticism

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

- Proverb, Chinese

Best Quotes about Criticism

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.

He who throws dirt always loses ground.

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

Wilde, Oscar

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

Proverb, German

When subjected to the rain of criticism, let?s not curse the rain. Let?s accept it as a part of life. Let?s remember that the more criticism we can successfully handle, the more zest we will experience in our lives.

Sinha, Shall

I know I'm never as good or bad as one single performance. I've never believed in my critics or my worshippers, and I've always been able to leave the game at the arena.

Barkley, Charles

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.

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

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

Carlyle, Thomas

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Helvetius, Claude A.

13.

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

14.

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

Gourmont, Remy De

15.

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

16.

Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

17.

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

Mcclung, Nellie

18.

You're never s good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.

Holtz, Lou

19.

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

20.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

21.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Fox, Dr. Emmit

22.

After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.

Edith Wharton

23.

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

24.

All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.

Hemingway, Ernest

25.

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

26.

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

Baudelaire, Charles

27.

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

Johnson, Samuel

28.

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

Little, Lynn M.

29.

In reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are.

Fielding, Henry

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.

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

Nunn, Gregory

32.

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

Christopher Hampton

33.

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

Kael, Pauline

34.

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

Williams, Bern

35.

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

Native American Proverb

36.

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

Buxton, Charles

37.

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

38.

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

Miller, Henry

39.

The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D.

Algren, Nelson

40.

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

41.

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

Hill, Napoleon

42.

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

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

43.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

44.

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

Hoffman, Dustin

45.

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

46.

In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.

Congreve, William

47.

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

48.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture; it's a really stupid thing to want to do.

Costello, Elvis

49.

Criticism of others is futile and if you indulge in it often you should be warned that it can be fatal to your career.

Carnegie, Dale

50.

For if there is anything to one's praise, it is foolish vanity to be gratified at it, and if it is abuse -- why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or another!

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley