Criticism Quotes

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.

Charles M. Schwab

But the greatest cause of verbicide is the fact that most people are obviously far more anxious to express their approval and disapproval of things than to describe them. Hence the tendency of words to become less descriptive and more evaluative; then become evaluative, while still retaining some hint of the sort of goodness or badness implied; and to end up by being purely evaluative -- useless synonyms for or for .

C.S. Lewis

The individual must not merely wait and criticize, he must defend the cause the best he can. The fate of the world will be such as the world deserves.

Albert Einstein

Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

Epictetus

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.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

One ought to examine himself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.

Moli

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

Napoleon Hill

Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it.

Sam Rayburn

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

John P. Mascotte

Has anybody ever seen a dramatic critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.

P. G. [Sir Pelham Grenville] Wod

Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.

Octavio Paz

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.

Kenneth Tynan, Tynan Right and L

Criticism always follows worthwhile action. The opposite is seldom true.

Torley Wong

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world -- in order to set up a shadow world of meanings.

Susan Sontag

I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across ... Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best. The mortality among pianists in that place is marvellous.

Oscar Wilde, Impressions of Amer

All criticism is opposition. All opposition is counter-revolutionary.

Fidel Castro, in John Newhouse,

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes