Criticism Quotes

One may not always know his purpose until his only option is to monopolize in what he truly excels at. He grows weary of hearing the answer 'no' time and time again, so he turns to and cultivates, monopolizes in his one talent which others cannot possibly subdue. Then, beyond the crowds of criticism and rejection, the right people recognize his talent - among them he finds his stage.

Criss Jami

I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.

Georgia O'Keeffe

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.

Thornton Wilder

I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise.

Noel Coward

You need a high degree of corruption or a very big heart to love absolutely everything

Gustave Flaubert

Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.

Virginia Woolf

Just let me go, we have to be able to criticize what we love, to say what we have to say 'cause if you're not trying to make something better, then as far as I can tell, you are just in the way.

Ani DiFranco

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

Antonio Porchia

The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot.

Criss Jami

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

Abraham Lincoln

The duty of criticism is neither to depreciate nor dignify by partial representations, but to hold out the light of reason, whatever it may discover; and to promulgate the determinations of truth, whatever she shall dictate

Samuel Johnson

Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing

Aristotle

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.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply

Samuel Johnson

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.

Nelson Algren

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.

Arthur Symons

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.

Bill Cartwright

Critics are those who have failed in literature and art.

Benjamin Disraeli

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

Proverb

I am no more annoyed when I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man's opinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures; or of a piece of music of mine, who had no ear for music.

Charles Dickens