Quotes about criticism

"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 on criticism   

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

Flagg, Fannie on criticism
8 fans of this quote   

"Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting."

Fox, Dr. Emmit on criticism   

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

France, Anatole on criticism   

"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 on criticism   

"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 on criticism   

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

Fuller, Margaret on criticism   

"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."

Gibbon, Edward on criticism   

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on criticism   

"Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better."

Goldsmith, Oliver on criticism   

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

Gourmont, Remy De on criticism   

"It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not."

Griswold, Alfred Whitney on criticism   

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

Hammarskjold, Dag on criticism   

"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs."

Hampton, Christopher on criticism   

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

Helvetius, Claude A. on criticism   

"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."

Hemingway, Ernest on criticism   

"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 on criticism   

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

Hill, Napoleon on criticism
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"A good review from the critics is just another stay of execution."

Hoffman, Dustin on criticism   

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on criticism   

"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 on criticism
4 fans of this quote   

"If you burn your neighbors house down, it doesn't make your house look any better."

Holtz, Lou on criticism
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"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."

Hubbard, Elbert on criticism
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"I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one."

Hugo, Victor on criticism   

"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."

Hutton, R. H. on criticism   

"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."

Hutton, R. H. on criticism   

"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. on criticism
3 fans of this quote   

"As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks."

James, Clive on criticism   

"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 on criticism   

"Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however, and you'll condemn them all!"

James, Henry on criticism   

"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."

Johnson, Samuel on criticism   

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

Johnson, Samuel on criticism   

"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."

Johnson, Samuel on criticism   

"Honest criticism is hard to take, especially from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger."

Jones, Franklin P. on criticism   

"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 on criticism   

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

Kael, Pauline on criticism   

"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."

Kant, Immanuel on criticism   

"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."

Keats, John on criticism   

"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 on criticism