Criticism

"We should never let support blind us, or become a substitute for continuing to be both self-critical, and dedicated to our goals. We should not be dissuaded by our critics, but we should be able to honestly ask ourselves if there is anything to learn from them. Hopefully, the fact that sympathizers and critics are taking notice means that we are actually doing something."

"Whatever else he may do, a critic reveals and criticises himself."

"CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him."

"Great art is a religious function...great criticism is, therefore—since it is necessary for great art—a religious function. Even when you're saying something negative, it might be in the service of the Lord"

"In all of history, we have found just one cure for error—a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism."

"He was in Logic, a great critic, Profoundly skill'd in Analytic; He could distinguish, and divide A hair 'twixt south and south-west side."

"I am not a critic; to me criticism is so often nothing more than the eye garrulously denouncing the shape of the peephole that gives access to hidden treasure."

"Criticism, whatever may be its pretensions, never does more than to define the impression which is made upon it at a certain moment by a work wherein the writer himself noted the impression of the world which he received at a certain hour."

"I love criticism as long as it is unqualified praise."

"Those who are esteemed umpires of taste are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual."

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one... just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

"To study Buddhism and then use it as a weapon in order to criticize others' theories or ideologies is wrong. The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we must criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things which we must check in daily life with the knowledge of the Buddhist teachings."

"Parodies and caricatures are the most penetrating of criticisms."

"Critics should never socialize with artists; it’s difficult enough to like their work in the first place."

"“Ah, ‘The Suffering Critic.’ A work to gladden the heart of any artist.”"

"We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donné: our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it."

"'Tis not the wholesome sharp morality, Or modest anger of a satiric spirit, That hurts or wounds the body of a state, But the sinister application Of the malicious, ignorant, and base Interpreter; who will distort and strain The general scope and purpose of an author To his particular and private spleen."

"One would think that an unsuccessful volume was like a degree in the school of reviewing. One unread work makes the judge bitter enough ; but a second failure, and he is quite desperate in his damnation. I do believe one half of the injustice — the severity of 'the ungentle craft' originates in its own want of success ; they cannot forgive the popularity which has passed them over."

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

"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."

"The modern proliferation of theoretical means and critical methods barely conceals the fact that we still allow ourselves to write about these works only within the narrowest disciplinary boundaries. We move from rigorous scholarship (the phrase is already too obvious) to ideological commitments that often seem, even when they are put forward in the name of History, to have forgotten the perils of devotion to an idea; to some straitened notion of pleasure; to the fantasy that some new science of rhetorical displacements will finally release us from the cold regime of the final signified. We have plenty of psychoanalytic criticism, formalist criticism, ideological criticism, etc., but where is our fear criticism? our despair criticism? our disgust criticism? our criticism of resentment? of petty ambition? of treachery, deceit, jealousy, hysterical rage? Nowhere in sight; and yet it would hardly require much effort to discover them all just beneath the thin civility of the strictest critical decorum. Then what if we were able to pursue critical fear, to identify critics with their fear, to prove that service to the text is driven by jealous desires, horrified resentment, abject loathing."

"Indessen ist das gerade wieder der Vorzug der neuen Richtung, daß wir nicht dogmatisch die Welt antizipieren, sondern erst aus der Kritik der alten Welt die neue finden wollen. ... Ist die Konstruktion der Zukunft und das Fertigwerden für alle Zeiten nicht unsere Sache, so ist desto gewisser, was wir gegenwärtig zu vollbringen haben, ich meine die rücksichtslose Kritik alles Bestehenden, rücksichtslos sowohl in dem Sinne, daß die Kritik sich nicht vor ihren Resultaten fürchtet und ebensowenig vor dem Konflikte mit den vorhandenen Mächten."

"Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower."

"The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons."

"Eminem: I tried to show you art, but you just pick it apart."

"People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise."

"It is not necessary to judge and ridicule when, thank God, you have not passed the path that I have. To them, as always, I wish everyone good and every honor..."

"Whoever criticizes others must have something to replace them. Criticism without suggestion is like trying to stop flood with flood and put out fire with fire. It will surely be without worth."

"Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss."

"The generous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, And taught the world with reason to admire."

"When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow."

"A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit With the same spirit that its author writ: Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind."

"In every work regard the writer's End, Since none can compass more than they intend; And if the means be just, the conduct true, Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due."

"Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."

"Ah, ne'er so dire a thirst of glory boast, Nor in the Critic let the Man be lost."

"If constructive criticism causes uncomfortable reactions from politicians and business people, they need to look at themselves."

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

"Never judge a critic by your agreement with his likes and dislikes."

"Criticism is not religion, and by no process can it be substituted for it. It is not the critic's eye but the child's heart that most truly discerns the countenance that looks out from the pages of the Gospel."

"In such a time as this it is not meet That every nice offence should bear his comment."

"Better a little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak."

"For 'tis a physic That's bitter to sweet end."

"For I am nothing, if not critical."

"One who rejects a rebuke goes astray."

"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but those who hate to be rebuked are stupid."

"Let dull critics feed upon the carcases of plays; give me the taste and the dressing."

"Unbridled criticism affects your life. Forever. It becomes a part of the pattern that designs the fabric of your suffering. The torturer and the tortured, married in painful redefinition, marking indelibly the way you live and die, the way you perform your art."

"In the proudest nations of the Old World works were published which faithfully portrayed the vices and absurdities of contemporaries; La Bruyère lived in Louis XIV’s palace while he wrote his chapter on the great, and Molière criticized the court in plays acted before the courtiers. But the power which dominates in the United States does not understand being mocked like that. The least reproach offends it, and the slightest sting of truth turns it fierce; and one must praise everything, from the turn of its phrases to its most robust virtues. No writer, no matter how famous, can escape from this obligation to sprinkle incense over his fellow citizens. Hence the majority lives in a state of perpetual self-adoration; only strangers or experience may be able to bring certain truths to the Americans’ attention."

"How is he made? Oftentimes bitter, sometimes sweet, seldom even wide-awake, architectural criticism of "the modern" wholly lacks inspiration or any qualification because it lacks the appreciation that is love: the flame essential to profound understanding. Only as criticism is the fruit of such experience will it ever be able to truly appraise anything. Else the spirit of true criticism is lacking. The spirit is love and love alone can understand. So art criticism is sour and superficial today because it would seem to know all about everything but understand nothing."

"I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world."