quotations about criticism
Probably you have noted the resemblance of the critic to the crank.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.
JUDITH MARTIN
Common Courtesy
The finer house you build the sharper will be the criticism.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
Characters
If you absolutely can't tolerate critics, then don't do anything new or interesting.
JEFF BEZOS
bOinGbOinG, June 1, 2016
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
ARISTOTLE
attributed, The Writer's Workout
When a critic sets himself up as an arbiter of morality, a judge of the matter and not the manner of a work, he is no longer a critic; he is a censor.
EDWARD ALBEE
preface, The American Dream
Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you’ve got a pretty neck.
ELI WALLACH
attributed, The Book of Classic Insults
Time is the only critic.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978
Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.
JEAN ROSTAND
"A Biologist's Thoughts,", The Substance of Man
The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
In criticism I will be bold, and sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
Letters of Edgar Allan Poe
Critics? Don't talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don't.
JONATHAN RABAN
attributed, Looking Together: Writers on Art
A young critic is like a boy with a gun; he fires at every living thing he sees. He thinks only of his own skill, not of the pain he is giving.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
Criticism often takes from the tree caterpillars and blossoms together.
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
Titan
The exercise of criticism always destroys for a time, our sensibility to beauty by leading us to regard the work in relation to certain laws of creation. The eye turns from the charms of nature to fix itself upon the servile desterity of art.
ARCHIBALD ALISON
attributed, Day's Collacon
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.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Table-Talk
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
Table-Talk
What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcass of a play!
With croaking notes they bode some dire event,
And follow dying poets by the scent.
JOHN DRYDEN
prologue, All for Love