A critic is a gong at a railroad crossing clanging loudly and vainly as the train goes by.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
We are told we should always speak well of the dead. But wouldn’t that sometimes be hypocrisy? The writer did not hesitate to criticize (American Woolen Co. head) William M. Wood during his life and now feels that his tragic death, by suicide, contains a lesson for at least a few of America’s large employers. When infirmity overtook him, he (attempted) works of repentance, but it was too late…. The writer knows that too many men of vast affairs are blind to the realities, the worthwhile things of life, and do not acquire a correct perspective until they feel themselves slipping toward the grave.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
The most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author.
—Isaac D’Israeli (1766–1848) English Writer, Scholar
Having a sharp tongue will cut your throat.
—Anonymous
Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.
—John Steinbeck (1902–68) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Journalist
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
In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.
—Charles Buxton (1823–71) British Politician, Writer
He only profits from praise who values criticism.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
Blame is safer than praise.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
God knows people who are paid to have attitudes toward things, professional critics, make me sick; camp following eunuchs of literature. They won’t even whore. They’re all virtuous and sterile. And how well meaning and high minded. But they’re all camp followers.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Has anybody ever seen a dramatic critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.
—P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) British Novelist, Short-story Writer, Playwright
Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well; the chiefest part of which is to observe those excellencies which delight a reasonable reader
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
If a man be endowed with a generous mind, this is the best kind of nobility.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
He who throws dirt always loses ground.
—Indian Proverb
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
Each generation produces its squad of “moderns” with peashooters to attack Gibraltar.
—Channing Pollock (1880–1946)
American Playwright, Critic
The whole effort of a sincere man is to erect his personal impressions into laws.
—Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915) French Poet, Novelist, Critic
Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.
—Dag Hammarskjold (1905–61) Swedish Statesman, UN Diplomat
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
If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
Critics are already made.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
If you have no will to change it, you have no right to criticize it.
—Unknown
It behooves the minor critic, who hunts for blemishes, to be a little distrustful of his own sagacity.
—Junius Unidentified English Writer
Don’t pay any attention to the critics. Don’t even ignore them.
—Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) Polish-born American Film Producer, Businessperson
If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.
—Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021) U.S. Secretary of Defense
When criticized, consider the source.
—Unknown
What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.
—Octavio Paz (1914–98) Mexican Poet, Diplomat
Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.
—Hugo Black (1886–1971) American Politician, Jurist
Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
Remember: When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
—Neil Gaiman (b.1960) British Writer
After all, one knows one’s weak points so well, that it’s rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
In the finest critics one hears the full cry of the human. They tell one why it matters to read.
—Harold Bloom (1930–2019) American Literary Critic, Author
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
The person who offends writes as if it was written on sand, and the person who is offended reads it as if it were written on marble.
—Italian Proverb
It’s too easy to criticize a man when he’s out of favor, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else’s mistakes.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife—a tyrannical midwife.
—Stephen Spender (1909–95) English Poet, Critic
A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.
—Kenneth Tynan (1927–80) English Theatre Critic, Writer
It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration—nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.
—Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher
I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
A critic is a legless man who teaches running.
—Channing Pollock (1880–1946)
American Playwright, Critic
Abuse if you slight it, will gradually die away; but if you show yourself irritated, you will be thought to have deserved it.
—Tacitus (56–117) Roman Orator, Historian
Let me walk three weeks in the footsteps of my enemy, carry the same burden, have the same trials as he, before I say one word to criticize.
—Unknown
Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense.
—Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American Paleontologist, Science Writer
The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything. The person of synthetic or constructive intellect, in almost nothing.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet