I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
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 (1862–1939) American Businessperson
It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
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
Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.
—Chinese Proverb
This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
Criticism should be a casual conversation.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
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
Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away and have his shoes.
—Anonymous
It is wrong to be harsh with the New York critics, unless one admits in the same breath that it is a condition of their existence that they should write entertainingly about something which is rarely worth writing about at all.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own.
—Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Poet
Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil’d; if right, I kiss’d the rod.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Never criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.
—American Indian Proverb
People want you to be a crazy, out-of-control teen brat. They want you miserable, just like them. They don’t want heroes; what they want is to see you fall.
—Leonardo DiCaprio (b.1974) American Actor, Film Producer
To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one’s own.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
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
One ought to look a good deal at oneself before thinking of condemning others.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
A critic is a legless man who teaches running.
—Channing Pollock (1880–1946) American Playwright, Critic
Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.
—Margaret Fuller (1810–50) American Feminist, Writer, Revolutionary
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
Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.
—John Updike (1932–2009) American Novelist, Poet, Short-Story Writer
There are some critics who change everything that comes under their hands to gold; but to this privilege of Midas they join sometimes his ears.
—Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (1792–1870) French-Swiss Lyric Poet
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
Reviewers are usually people who would have been, poets, historians, biographer, if they could. They have tried their talents at one thing or another and have failed; therefore they turn critic.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Leave a Reply