Quote: They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own. Author: Antonio Porchia
Quote: I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later. Author: Ezra Pound 1885-1972, American Poet, Critic
Quote: Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins. Author: American Indian Proverb Sayings of American Indian Origin
Quote: Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead. Author: Chinese Proverb Sayings of Chinese Origin
Quote: Those who have free seats at a play hiss first. Author: Chinese Proverb Sayings of Chinese Origin
Quote: Even the lion has to defend himself against flies. Author: German Proverb Sayings of German Origin
Quote: The television critic, whatever his pretensions, does not labor in the same vineyard as those he criticizes; his grapes are all sour. Author: Frederic Raphael 1931-, British Author, Critic
Quote: Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it. Author: Sam Rayburn 1882-1961, American Representative
Quote: Do what you feel in your heart to be right. You'll be criticized anyway. Author: Eleanor Roosevelt 1884-1962, American First Lady, Columnist, Lecturer, Humanitarian
Quote: One of the grotesqueries of present-day American life is the amount of reasoning that goes into displaying the wisdom secreted in bad movies while proving that modern art is meaningless. They have put into practice the notion that a bad art work cleverly interpreted according to some obscure Method is more rewarding than a masterpiece wrapped in silence. Author: Harold Rosenberg 1906-1978, American Art Critic, Author
Quote: 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] Author: Isabella Rossellini 1952-, Italian Actress, Model
Quote: Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are. Author: Jean Rostand 1894-1977, French Biologist, Writer
Quote: 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. Author: Helen Rowland 1875-1950, American Journalist
Quote: A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach. Author: Friedrich Schlegel 1772-1829, German Philosopher, Critic, Writer
Quote: In my wide association in life, meeting with many and great men in various parts of the world, I have yet to find the man, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism. Author: Charles M. Schwab 1862-1939, American Industrialist, Businessman
Quote: As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation. Author: Hans Selye 1907-1982, Canadian Physician Born In Austria, Research On Stress
Quote: Give me the critic bred in Nature's school, who neither talks by rote, nor thinks by rule; who feeling's honest dictates still obeys, and dares, without a precedent, to praise. Author: Sir Martin Archer Shee
Quote: Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic. Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822, British Poet
Quote: A man generally has the good or ill qualities he attributes to mankind. Author: William Shenstone 1714-1763, British Poet
Quote: 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! Author: Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1751-1816, Anglo-Irish Dramatist
Quote: 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. Author: William Gilmore Simms 1806-1870, American Author
Quote: The dread of criticism is the death of genius. Author: William Gilmore Simms 1806-1870, American Author
Quote: 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. Author: Shall Sinha
Quote: If I make a move, like raise my eyebrows, some critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows? Author: Christian Slater 1969-, American Actor
Quote: I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so. Author: Sydney Smith 1771-1845, British Writer, Clergyman
Quote: Some people are always critical of vague statements. I tend rather to be critical of precise statements; they are the only ones which can correctly be labeled ''wrong.'' Author: Raymond Smullyan
Quote: Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility. Author: Susan Sontag 1933-, American Essayist
Quote: In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable. Author: Susan Sontag 1933-, American Essayist
Quote: 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. Author: Susan Sontag 1933-, American Essayist
Quote: Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play. Author: John Steinbeck 1902-1968, American Author
Quote: Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard. Author: John Steinbeck 1902-1968, American Author
Quote: 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! Author: Laurence Sterne 1713-1768, British Author
Quote: 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. Author: Arthur Symons
Quote: Abuse if you slight it, will gradually die away; but if you show yourself irritated, you will be thought to have deserved it. Author: Publius Cornelius Tacitus 55-117 AD, Roman Historian
Quote: A louse in the locks of literature. Author: Lord Alfred Tennyson 1809-1892, British Poet
Quote: 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. Author: Lord Alfred Tennyson 1809-1892, British Poet
Quote: I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness. Author: Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862, American Essayist, Poet, Naturalist
Quote: All my life people have said that I wasn't going to make it. Author: Ted Turner 1938-, American Businessman, Founder of CNN
Quote: The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all. Author: Mark Twain 1835-1910, American Humorist, Writer
Quote: A critic is a man who knows the way, but can't drive the car. Author: Kenneth Tynan 1927-1980, British Critic
Quote: 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. Author: Kenneth Tynan 1927-1980, British Critic
Quote: All of us could take a lesson from the weather, it pays no attention to criticism. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: 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. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: Brilliant people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: Criticism is the disapproval of people, not for having faults, but having faults different from your own. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: Don't mind criticism. If it is untrue, disregard it; if unfair, keep from irritation; if it is ignorant, smile; if it is justified it is not criticism, learn from it. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: Having a sharp tongue will cut your throat Author: Source Unknown
Quote: He who throws dirt always loses ground. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: It is strange that we do not temper our resentment of criticism with a thought for our many faults which have escaped us. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: It is usually best to be generous with praise, but cautious with criticism. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: The best criticism doesn't trap an employee or child in a dead end. It gives them an escape route. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: There is one way to handle the ignorant and malicious critic. Ignore him. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: There's a fine line between participation and mockery. Author: Scott Adams American Cartoonist, ''Dilbert''
Quote: Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity. Author: Joseph Addison 1672-1719, British Essayist, Poet, Statesman
Quote: 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. Author: Theodor W. Adorno 1903-1969, German Philosopher, Sociologist, Music Critic
Quote: Most of us are umpires at heart; we like to call balls and strikes on somebody else. Author: Leo Aikman
Quote: 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. Author: Nelson Algren 1909-1981, American Author
Quote: Criticism should be a casual conversation. Author: W. H. Auden 1907-1973, Anglo-American Poet
Quote: 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. Author: W. H. Auden 1907-1973, Anglo-American Poet
Quote: 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. Author: Charles Barkley American Basketball Player
Quote: It is from the womb of art that criticism was born. Author: Charles Baudelaire 1821-1867, French Poet
Quote: To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons. Author: Charles Baudelaire 1821-1867, French Poet
Quote: A negative judgment gives you more satisfaction than praise, provided it smacks of jealousy. Author: Jean Baudrillard French Postmodern Philosopher, Writer
Quote: We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started. Author: Henry Ward Beecher 1813-1887, American Preacher, Orator, Writer
Quote: The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion. Author: Walter Benjamin 1982-1940, German Critic, Philosopher
Quote: Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present. Author: John Berger 1926-, British Actor, Critic
Quote: Be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. Author: Bible Sacred Scriptures of Christians and Judaism
Quote: The covers of this book are too far apart. Author: Ambrose Bierce 1842-1914, American Author, Editor, Journalist, ''The Devil's Dictionary''
Quote: A good writer is not necessarily a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender. Author: Jim Bishop
Quote: Satire is often the reflection of a kind of moral nausea. Author: Crand Briton
Quote: Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself. Author: Jean De La BruyFre 1645-1696, French Classical Writer
Quote: Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame. Author: Robert Burns 1759-1796, Scottish Poet
Quote: 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. Author: William S. Burroughs 1914-1997, American Writer
Quote: Self-laudation abounds among the unpolished, but nothing can stamp a man more sharply as ill-bred. Author: Charles Buxton 1823-1871, British Author
Quote: The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon. Author: Charles Buxton 1823-1871, British Author
Quote: A man must serve his time to every trade save censure -- critics all are ready made. Author: Lord Byron 1788-1824, British Poet
Quote: Critics are already made. Author: Lord Byron 1788-1824, British Poet
Quote: No sadder proof can be given of a person's own tiny stature, than their disbelief in great people. Author: Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881, Scottish Philosopher, Author
Quote: Criticism of others is futile and if you indulge in it often you should be warned that it can be fatal to your career. Author: Dale Carnegie 1888-1955, American Author, Trainer
Quote: If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done. Author: Dale Carnegie 1888-1955, American Author, Trainer
Quote: In judging others, folks will work overtime for no pay. Author: Charles Edwin Carruthers
Quote: I remember when I was in college, people told me I couldn't play in the NBA. There's always somebody saying you can't do it, and those people have to be ignored. Author: Bill Cartwright American Basketball Player
Quote: 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. Author: Raymond Chandler 1888-1959, American Author
Quote: It is wrong to be harsh with the New York critics, unless one admits in the same breath that it is a condition of their existence that they should write entertainingly about something which is rarely worth writing about at all. Author: Raymond Chandler 1888-1959, American Author
Quote: 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. Author: Raymond Chandler 1888-1959, American Author
Quote: Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, they damn those authors whom they never read. Author: Charles Churchill 1731-1764, British Poet, Satirist
Quote: 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. Author: Winston Churchill 1874-1965, British Statesman, Prime Minister
Quote: He cannot be strict in judging, who does not wish others to be strict judges of himself. Author: Marcus T. Cicero c. 106-43 BC, Great Roman Orator, Politician
Quote: They condemn what they do not understand. Author: Marcus T. Cicero c. 106-43 BC, Great Roman Orator, Politician
Quote: Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves. Author: E. M. Cioran 1911-, Rumanian-born French Philosopher
Quote: Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing. Author: Harold Clurman
Quote: What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you. Author: Jean Cocteau 1889-1963, French Author, Filmmaker
Quote: Critics are usually kinder to cheaper movies than to those they perceive to be big Hollywood releases. They cut you a lot more slack if you spend less money, which makes no sense. Author: Ethan Coen 1957-, American Director, Screenwriter, Editor, Producer
Quote: 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. Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834, British Poet, Critic, Philosopher
Quote: The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them. Author: Jackie Collins American Author, Sister of Joan Collins
Quote: 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. Author: William Congreve 1670-1729, British Dramatist
Quote: 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. Author: Cyril Connolly 1903-1974, British Critic
Quote: Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters. Author: Joseph Conrad 1857-1924, Polish-born British Novelist
Quote: I have found it advisable not to give too much heed to what people say when I am trying to accomplish something of consequence. Invariably they proclaim it can't be done. I deem that the very best time to make the effort. Author: Calvin Coolidge 1872-1933, Thirtieth President of the USA
Quote: Writing about music is like dancing about architecture; it's a really stupid thing to want to do. Author: Elvis Costello 1955-, British-born American Musician, Singer, Songwriter
Quote: 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. Author: Edward Dahlberg 1900-1977, American Author, Critic
Quote: 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. Author: Edward Dahlberg 1900-1977, American Author, Critic
Quote: 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. Author: Edward Dahlberg 1900-1977, American Author, Critic
Quote: 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. Author: Leonardo DiCaprio 1974-, American Actor
Quote: Critics are those who have failed in literature and art. Author: Benjamin Disraeli 1804-1881, British Statesman, Prime Minister
Quote: It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. Author: Benjamin Disraeli 1804-1881, British Statesman, Prime Minister
Quote: Half of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern society comes from the vain ideas that every man is bound to be a critic for life. Author: Henry Van Dyke 1852--1933, American Protestant Clergyman and Writer
Quote: Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood. Author: Tryon Edwards 1809-1894, American Theologian
Quote: 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. Author: T. S. Eliot 1888-1965, American-born British Poet, Critic
Quote: Blame is safer than praise. Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist
Quote: Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring. Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist
Quote: Men over forty are no judges of a book written in a new spirit. Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist
Quote: If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it. Author: Epictetus 50-120, Stoic Philosopher
Quote: Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another. Author: Desiderius Erasmus c.1466-1536, Dutch Humanist
Quote: The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews. Author: William Faulkner 1897-1962, American Novelist
Quote: 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. Author: Henry Fielding 1707-1754, British Novelist, Dramatist
Quote: Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you're two steps ahead! Author: Fannie Flagg
Quote: Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting. Author: Dr. Emmit Fox
Quote: The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces. Author: Anatole France 1844-1924, French Writer
Quote: If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. Author: Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat
Quote: Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions. Author: Margaret Fuller 1810-1850, American Writer, Lecturer
Quote: 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. Author: Margaret Fuller 1810-1850, American Writer, Lecturer
Quote: The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event. Author: Edward Gibbon 1737-1794, British Historian
Quote: Strike the dog dead, it's but a critic! Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 1749-1832, German Poet, Dramatist, Novelist
Quote: The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything. The person of synthetic or constructive intellect, in almost nothing. Author: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 1749-1832, German Poet, Dramatist, Novelist
Quote: Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better. Author: Oliver Goldsmith 1728-1774, Anglo-Irish Author, Poet, Playwright
Quote: The whole effort of a sincere man is to erect his personal impressions into laws. Author: Remy De Gourmont 1858-1915, French Novelist, Philosopher, Poet, Playwright
Quote: It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not. Author: Alfred Whitney Griswold 1906-1963, American President of Yale University
Quote: Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard. Author: Dag Hammarskjold 1905-1961, Swedish Statesman, Secretary-general of U.N.
Quote: Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs. Author: Christopher Hampton 1946-, British Playwright
Quote: Harsh counsels have no effect; they are like hammers which are always repulsed by the anvil. Author: Claude A. HelvTtius 1715-1771, French Philosopher
Quote: 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. Author: Ernest Hemingway 1898-1961, American Writer
Quote: 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. Author: Ernest Hemingway 1898-1961, American Writer
Quote: If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water's edge'' Author: Napoleon Hill 1883-1970, American Speaker, Motivational Writer, ''Think and Grow Rich''
Quote: A good review from the critics is just another stay of execution. Author: Dustin Hoffman 1937-, American Actor
Quote: Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left. Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes 1809-1894, American Author, Wit, Poet
Quote: If you burn your neighbors house down, it doesn't make your house look any better. Author: Lou Holtz 1937-, American Football Coach
Quote: You're never s good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose. Author: Lou Holtz 1937-, American Football Coach
Quote: To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. Author: Elbert Hubbard 1859-1915, American Author, Publisher
Quote: I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one. Author: Victor Hugo 1802-1885, French Poet, Dramatist, Novelist
Quote: 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. Author: R. H. Hutton
Quote: Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer. Author: R. H. Hutton
Quote: 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. Author: H. A. Ironside
Quote: As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks. Author: Clive James 1939-, Australian-Born Writer, Satirist, Broadcaster, and Critic
Quote: Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however, and you'll condemn them all! Author: Henry James 1843-1916, American Author
Quote: 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. Author: Henry James 1843-1916, American Author
Quote: Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic. Author: Samuel Johnson 1709-1784, British Author
Quote: Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well. Author: Samuel Johnson 1709-1784, British Author
Quote: I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse. Author: Samuel Johnson 1709-1784, British Author
Quote: Honest criticism is hard to take, especially from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. Author: Franklin P. Jones
Quote: 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. Author: Joseph Joubert 1754-1824, French Moralist
Quote: In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising. Author: Pauline Kael 1919-, American Film Critic
Quote: Ours is an age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds for exemption from the examination by this tribunal, But, if they are exempted, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination. Author: Immanuel Kant 1724-1804, German Philosopher
Quote: Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works. Author: John Keats 1795-1821, British Poet
Quote: 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. Author: Paul Klee 1879-1940, Swiss Artist
Quote: Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries. Author: Milan Kundera 1929-, Czech Author, Critic
Quote: Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical accidents, soon forgotten. Author: Milan Kundera 1929-, Czech Author, Critic
Quote: The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things. Author: Jean De La Bruyere 1645-1696, French Writer
Quote: Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it. Author: D. H. Lawrence 1885-1930, British Author
Quote: There are two insults no human will endure. The assertion that he has no sense of humor and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble. Author: Sinclair Lewis 1885-1951, First American Novelist to win the Nobel Prize for literature
Quote: If I care to listen to every criticism, let alone act on them, then this shop may as well be closed for all other businesses. I have learned to do my best, and if the end result is good then I do not care for any criticism, but if the end result is not good, then even the praise of ten angels would not make the difference. Author: Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865, Sixteenth President of the USA
Quote: 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. Author: Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865, Sixteenth President of the USA
Quote: The easiest thing a human being can do is to criticize another human being. Author: Lynn M. Little
Quote: Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author. Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1819-1892, American Poet
Quote: 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. Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1819-1892, American Poet
Quote: The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized. Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1819-1892, American Poet
Quote: A sneer is the weapon of the weak. Author: James Russell Lowell 1819-1891, American Poet, Critic, Editor
Quote: A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic. Author: James Russell Lowell 1819-1891, American Poet, Critic, Editor
Quote: Never make the mistake of assuming the critters will beat a path to your door. Author: John P. Mascotte
Quote: People who ask for your criticism want only praise. Author: W. Somerset Maugham 1874-1965, British Novelist, Playwright
Quote: You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism. Author: W. Somerset Maugham 1874-1965, British Novelist, Playwright
Quote: Critical remarks are only made by people who love you. Author: Federico Mayor
Quote: Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl. Author: Nellie Mcclung 1873-1951, Canadian Suffragist, Writer, Speaker
Quote: It is critical vision alone which can mitigate the unimpeded operation of the automatic. Author: Marshall Mcluhan 1911-1980, Canadian Communications Theorist
Quote: 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! Author: Golda Meir 1898-1978, Prime Minister of Israel, 1969-74
Quote: 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. Author: Lord Melbourne 1779-1848, British Statesman, Prime Minister
Quote: Criticism is prejudice made plausible. Author: H. L. Mencken 1880-1956, American Editor, Author, Critic, Humorist
Quote: 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. Author: H. L. Mencken 1880-1956, American Editor, Author, Critic, Humorist
Quote: Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire. Author: Henry Miller 1891-1980, American Author
Quote: 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. Author: Henry Miller 1891-1980, American Author
Quote: A drama critic is a person who surprises the playwright by informing him what he meant. Author: Wilson Mizner 1876-1933, American Author
Quote: One ought to examine himself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others. Author: MoliFre 1622-1673, French Playwright
Quote: Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it. Author: Michel Eyquem De Montaigne 1533-1592, French Philosopher, Essayist
Quote: We are suffering from too much sarcasm. Author: Marianne Moore 1887-1972, American Poet
Quote: A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia. Author: Iris Murdoch 1919-, British Novelist, Philosopher
Quote: We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unarmed applause. Author: Jose Narosky
Quote: When the critics come around it's always too late. Author: Sir Sidney Nolan
Quote: All the world's a stage, and all the clergymen critics. Author: Gregory Nunn 1955-, American Golfer
Quote: No matter how well you perform there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy. Author: Sir Lawrence Olivier 1907-1989, British Actor, Producer, Director
Quote: 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. Author: George Orwell 1903-1950, British Author, ''Animal Farm''
Quote: 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. Author: Camille Paglia 1947-, American Author, Critic, Educator
Quote: This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. Author: Dorothy Parker 1893-1967, American Humorous Writer
Quote: Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings. Author: Octavio Paz 1914-, Mexican Poet, Essayist
Quote: Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs. Author: Pablo Picasso 1881-1973, Spanish Artist
Quote: In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me. Author: Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1845, American Poet, Critic, short-story Writer
Quote: A critic is a legless man who teaches running. Author: Channing Pollock American Actor
Quote: Each generation produces its squad of ''moderns'' with peashooters to attack Gibraltar. Author: Channing Pollock American Actor
Quote: Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- criticize. Author: Source Unknown
Quote: Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea. Author: John Updike 1932-, American Novelist, Critic
Quote: It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the children one's ''mature'' critics often are. Author: Alice Walker 1944-, American Author, Critic
Quote: A film is just like a muffin. You make it. You put it on the table. One person might say, ''Oh, I don't like it.'' One might say it's the best muffin ever made. One might say it's an awful muffin. It's hard for me to say. It's for me to make the muffin. Author: Denzel Washington 1954-, American Actor
Quote: Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience. Author: Rebecca West 1892-1983, British Author
Quote: After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others. Author: Edith Wharton 1862-1937, American Author
Quote: You should not say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe. Author: James Mcneill Whistler 1834-1903, American Artist
Quote: On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure. Author: Oscar Wilde 1856-1900, British Author, Wit
Quote: Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic -- a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us. Author: Oscar Wilde 1856-1900, British Author, Wit
Quote: 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. Author: Oscar Wilde 1856-1900, British Author, Wit
Quote: The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic. Author: Oscar Wilde 1856-1900, British Author, Wit
Quote: The true critic is he who bears within himself the dreams and ideas and feelings of myriad generations, and to whom no form of thought is alien, no emotional impulse obscure. Author: Oscar Wilde 1856-1900, British Author, Wit
Quote: Every writer is necessarily a critic -- that is, each sentence is a skeleton accompanied by enormous activity of rejection; and each selection is governed by general principles concerning truth, force, beauty, and so on. The critic that is in every fabulist is like the iceberg -- nine-tenths of him is under water. Author: Thornton Wilder 1897-1975, American Novelist, Playwright
Quote: A friend is a lot of things, but a critic isn't. Author: Bern Williams
Quote: It is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shouting at you. Author: Woodrow T. Wilson 1856-1924, Twenty-eighth President of the USA
Quote: Remember that nobody will ever get ahead of you as long as he is kicking you in the seat of the pants. Author: Walter Winchell 1897-1972, American Journalist
Quote: 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. Author: Thomas Wolfe 1931-, American Author, Journalist
Quote: It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others. Author: Virginia Woolf 1882-1941, British Novelist, Essayist
Quote: There has never been a statue erected to honor a critic. Author: Zig Ziglar American Sales Trainer, Author, Motivational Speaker