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Interesting Quotes About Criticism

All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Anonymous

There is so much good in the worst of us, And so much bad in the best of us, That it ill behooves any of us, To say anything about the rest of us.

Anonymous

Between the amateur and the professional…there is a difference not only in degree but in kind. The skillful man is, within the function of his skill, a different psychological organization…A tennis player or a watchmaker or an airplane pilot is an automatism but he is also criticism and wisdom.

Bernard De Voto

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.

Charles Horton Cooley

There is no virtue in being uncritical; nor is it a habit to which the young are given. But criticism is only the burying beetle that gets rid of what is dead, and, since the world lives by creative and constructive forces, and not by negation and destru

Federico Mayor

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Really, to stop criticism, they say, one must die.

Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

We’re all generous, but with different things, like time, money, talent — criticism.

Frank A. Clark

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

Franklin P. Jones

Great critics do not explicate a text; they describe it and then report on what they have described, if the description itself is not the criticism.

Gore Vidal

A lively, disinterested, persistent looking for truth is extraordinarily rare. Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not to be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism or doubt.

Henri Frdric Amiel

If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism if our government is to function it must have dissent.

Henry Commager

Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.

Henry Fielding

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

Henry Steele

Everything is bilateral in the domain of thought. Ideas are binary. Janus is the myth of criticism and the symbol of genius. Only God is triangular!

Honore de Balzac

Persecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it.

Howard Mumford Jones

Fix the problem, not the blame.

Japanese Proverb

I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.

Johann Kepler

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We protest against unjust criticism, but we accept unearned applause.

Jose Narosky

Theology, not morality, is the first business on the church’s agenda of reform, and the church, not society, is the first target of divine criticism.

Michael Horton

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

Noel Coward

A university’s essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism-a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.

Richard Hofstadter

There is no virtue in being uncritical nor is it a habit to which the young are given. But criticism is only the burying beetle that gets rid of what is dead, and, since the world lives by creative and constructive forces, and not by negation and destruction, it is better to grow up in the company of prophets than of critics.

Richard Livingstone

There is only one justification for universities, as distinguished from trade schools. They must be centers of criticism.

Robert Hutchins

You can’t operate a company by fear, because the way to eliminate fear is to avoid criticism. And the way to avoid criticism is to do nothing.

Steve Ross

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.

W. Somerset Maugham

Dramatic experience is not logical; it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form.

Allen Tate

Praise and criticism seem to me to operate exactly on the same level. If you get a great review, it’s really thrilling for about ten minutes. If you get a bad review, it’s really crushing for ten minutes. Either way, you go on.

Ann Patchett

You know criticism when you get into this business. You accept the bad with the good, the tabloids and the positive side of it.

Carmen Electra

It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.

Charles Baudelaire

The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.

Charles Buxton

Silence is sometimes the severest criticism.

Charles Buxton

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

The most destructive criticism is indifference.

Edgar Watson Howe

Don’t abuse your friends and expect them to consider it criticism.

Edgar Watson Howe

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

Elbert Hubbard

Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

George Eliot

Anytime you put a movie out it’s subject to such scrutiny and such criticism.

Halle Berry

I have never found in a long experience of politics that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.

Harold Macmillan

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 Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.

Herman Melville

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.

Immanuel Kant

There has certainly been criticism of the timing involved in getting help to the victims of the storm, and much of it may indeed be warranted. However, this is not the time for pointing fingers; rather, it is the time for offering a helping hand to our neighbors in need.

Jo Bonner

Conservative New Testament studies could also provide an intellectually satisfying alternative to German biblical criticism and to the liberal theology that accompanied it.

John Gresham Machen

You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.

John Wooden

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

Katharine Hepburn

I’ve had trouble with criticism, I guess. It’s hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.

Kenneth Koch

I would guess that any criticism about Wal-Mart could have some element of truth with 1,500,000 people.

Lee Scott

If anything, the negative press and the criticism take away the opportunity to feel as good as you can feel about your employment.

Lee Scott

If I were white, I’d get less criticism.

Lenny Kravitz

I can take any amount of criticism as long as I can consider it unqualified praise.

Noel Coward

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

R. W. Griswold

No president in history has been more vilified or was more vilivied during the time he was President than Lincoln. Those who knew him, his secretaries, have written that he was deeply hurt by what was said about him and drawn about him, but on the other hand, Lincoln had the great strength of character never to display it, always able to stand tall and strong and firm no matter how harsh or unfair the criticism might be. These elements of greatness, of course, inspire us all today.

Richard Nixon

Also, the commercial media in a superior position, really, to any other corporate lobby, because where would people hear about commercial media or corporate media criticism, where would they hear criticism of them other than in the commercial media?

Robert McChesney

Neither praise nor blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to proscribe, and honestly to award – these are the true aims and duties of criticism.

Simms

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.

Susan Sontag

I mean look, the thing about movie making and criticism and producing movies now, everyone compares everything to something else.

Ted Demme

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Theodore Roosevelt

In a way, I have to have a dictatorship. I can’t be told that I’m wrong. That conflicts with what I was saying earlier about listening. It isn’t to do with receiving criticism and responding to other views, it’s who has that last decision.

Trevor Nunn

It is strange that we do not temper our resentment of criticism with a thought for our many faults which have escaped us.

Unknown

It is usually best to be generous with praise, but cautious with criticism.

Unknown

Criticism is the disapproval of people, not for having faults, but having faults different from your own.

Unknown

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.

William Gilmore Simms

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

William Gilmore Simms

Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism.

William Phillips

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

Zeuxis

In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring.

Enid Bagnold

Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.

George Eliot

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

Harry S. Truman

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.

Albert Einstein

After the announcement I received a lot of criticism as well as concern from fans and my family and friends. The obvious objections were about my health and whether or not I would be ready to play. In the end, I decided that I can’t take any chances that might jeopardize my season.

Barry Bonds

Constant Criticism Kills Love…Kindness Helps it Blossom and Grow.

Debra Roberts

The history of society, like the lives of men, is subject to ups and downs rendered easier to bear by dreams of a better future, as Marxist critics have vigorously asserted in their criticism of the traditional religions, overlooking the fact that Ma

Jacques Givet

This is the latest manifestation of the desire by those in power to minimize criticism and marginalize critics.

Nadine Strossen

The charges of high treason and genocide are extremely grave as regards the journalists. We call on the Ethiopian government to show the utmost transparency in these cases. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi should not try to defuse the criticism against him at the expense of the freedom or lives of citizens.

Reporters Without Borders

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense

Samuel Johnson

Every person has the power to make others happy.Some do it simply by entering a room –others by leaving the room.Some individuals leave trails of gloom;others, trails of joy.Some leave trails of hate and bitterness;others, trails of love and harmony.Some leave trails of cynicism and pessimism;others trails of faith and optimism.Some leave trails of criticism and resignation;others trails of gratitude and hope.What kind of trails do you leave?

William Arthur Ward

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

William James