Motivational Quotes

Criticism

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

Best Quotes about Criticism

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

Blame is safer than praise.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

It is critical vision alone which can mitigate the unimpeded operation of the automatic.

Mcluhan, Marshall

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

Steinbeck, John

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.

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

Hill, Napoleon

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

Porchia, Antonio

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

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

10.

We might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism.

Eliot, T. S.

11.

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

12.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

13.

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

14.

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

15.

Criticism should be a casual conversation.

Auden, W. H.

16.

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

Nunn, Gregory

17.

Strike the dog dead, it's but a critic!

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

18.

Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, they damn those authors whom they never read.

Churchill, Charles

19.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

France, Anatole

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Buxton, Charles

26.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

27.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

28.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

29.

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

Native American Proverb

30.

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

Clurman, Harold

31.

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

32.

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

Simms, William Gilmore

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Rostand, Jean

36.

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

Dahlberg, Edward

37.

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

Burns, Robert

38.

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

39.

We have been educated to such a fine -- or dull -- point that we are incapable of enjoying something new, something different, until we are first told what it's all about. We don't trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. In short, the blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way.

Miller, Henry

40.

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

Kael, Pauline

41.

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

42.

A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send checks to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas.

Frye, Northrop

43.

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

Zeuxis

44.

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

45.

Having a sharp tongue will cut your throat

46.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

47.

A critic is a man who knows the way, but can't drive the car.

Tynan, Kenneth

48.

A louse in the locks of literature.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred