quotations about criticism
The critics, or those who, thinking themselves so, decide deliberately and decisively about all public representations, group and divide themselves into different parties, each of whom admires a certain poem or a certain music and damns all others, urged on by a wholly different motive than public interest or justice. The ardour with which they defend their prejudices damages the opposite party as well as their own set. These men discourage poets and musicians by a thousand contradictions, and delay the progress of arts and sciences, by depriving them of the advantages to be obtained by that emulation and freedom which many excellent masters, each in their own way and according to their own genius, might display in the execution of some very fine works.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
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"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
They have a right to censure, that have a heart to help.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
KURT VONNEGUT
Palm Sunday
Criticism often takes from the tree caterpillars and blossoms together.
J. P. RICHTER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of the newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Kavanaugh: A Tale
The method of the critic is to balance praises with censure, and thus to do justice to the subject and--his own discrimination.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good; if meagre, muddy, vapid, and sour, both are fit only to engender colic and wind; but if rich, generous, and sparkling, they communicate a genial glow to the spirits, improve the taste, expand the heart, and are worthy of being introduced at the symposium of the gods.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
The Wit of Sir Winston
On the whole, however, the critic is far less of a professional faultfinder than is sometimes imagined. He is first of all a virtue-finder, a singer of praise. He is not concerned with getting rid of dross except in so far as it hides the gold. In other words, the destructive side of criticism is purely a subsidiary affair. None of the best critics have been men of destructive minds. They are like gardeners whose business is more with the flowers than with the weeds.
ROBERT WILSON LYND
The Art of Letters
Critics are like dead coals; they may blacken, but cannot burn.
ROBERT ANDERSON
The Works of the British Poets
Thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny of all government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society.
JIMMY CARTER
Farewell Address, Jan. 14, 1981
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
Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They see how it should be done every night. But they can't do it themselves.
BRENDAN BEHAN
attributed, As One Mad with Wine and Other Similes
The eyes of critics, whether in commending or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
The Pentameron: Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare
It may be laid down as an almost universal rule, that good poets are bad critics.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
Critical, Historical and Miscellaneous Essays
An author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an animal whom every body is privileged to attack: for though all are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them.
MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS
The Monk
If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic.
EDWARD ALBEE
Theater Week, 1988
Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough state, or gold in bars; they are traders, and in literature know only the coins that are current. Their criticism has scales and weights, but neither crucible nor touchstone.
JOUBERT
attributed, Day's Collacon
We are naturally displeased with an unknown critic, as the ladies are with a lampooner, because we are bitten in the dark, and know not where to fasten our revenge.
JOHN DRYDEN
Virgil: The Eclogues
Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.
FULTON J. SHEEN
Seven Words of Jesus and Mary