Of course you’re always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however, and you’ll condemn them all!
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
A friend is a lot of things, but a critic he isn’t.
—Bert Williams (1876–1922) American Entertainer, Actor
You should not say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you’re perfectly safe.
—James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) American Painter, Etcher
The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.
—Walter Benjamin
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 (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
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 (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
For if there is anything to one’s praise, it is foolish vanity to be gratified at it, and if it is abuse—why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or another!
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-born British Playwright, Poet, Elected Rep
Strike the dog dead, it’s but a critic!
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Great people talk about great ideas; average people talk about average ideas; small people talk about other poeple.
—Anonymous
I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
Writing prejudicial, off-putting reviews is a precise exercise in applied black magic. The reviewer can draw free-floating disagreeable associations to a book by implying that the book is completely unimportant without saying exactly why, and carefully avoiding any clear images that could capture the reader’s full attention.
—William S. Burroughs (1914–97) American Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer, Painter
A negative judgment gives you more satisfaction than praise, provided it smacks of jealousy.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Most of us are umpires at heart; we like to call balls and strikes on somebody else.
—Leo Aikman (1908–78) American Columnist
You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.
—Lou Holtz (1893–1980) American Stage Performer
Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.
—Robert Burns (1759–96) Scottish Poet, Songwriter
The best criticism doesn’t trap an employee or child in a dead end. It gives them an escape route.
—Indian Proverb
Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.
—Milan Kundera (b.1929) Czech Novelist
The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.
—Jackie Collins (1937–2015) English Romance Novelist
A man must serve his time to every trade
Save censure—critics are ready-made.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Criticism should be a casual conversation.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
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 (1806–70) American Poet, Historian, Novelist, Editor
The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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 (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
Men over forty are no judges of a book written in a new spirit.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
—Indian Proverb
It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic