quotations about criticism
The finer house you build the sharper will be the criticism.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
It is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment without having a critic forever, like the Old Man of the Sea, upon his back.
THOMAS MOORE
Lalla Rookh
Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.
JEAN ROSTAND
"A Biologist's Thoughts,", The Substance of Man
A young critic is like a boy with a gun; he fires at every living thing he sees. He thinks only of his own skill, not of the pain he is giving.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
Many critics are like woodpeckers, who, instead of enjoying the fruit and shadow of a tree, hop incessantly around the trunk, pecking holes in the bark to discover some little worm or other.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
Thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny of all government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society.
JIMMY CARTER
Farewell Address, Jan. 14, 1981
If you absolutely can't tolerate critics, then don't do anything new or interesting.
JEFF BEZOS
bOinGbOinG, June 1, 2016
When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.
JUDITH MARTIN
Common Courtesy
Probably you have noted the resemblance of the critic to the crank.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
KURT VONNEGUT
Palm Sunday
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.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
Time is the best critic.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
They have a right to censure, that have a heart to help.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
Characters
The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
ARISTOTLE
attributed, The Writer's Workout
Criticism often takes from the tree caterpillars and blossoms together.
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
Titan
Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work, rather than its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic.
EDWARD ALBEE
Theater Week, 1988
When a critic sets himself up as an arbiter of morality, a judge of the matter and not the manner of a work, he is no longer a critic; he is a censor.
EDWARD ALBEE
preface, The American Dream