Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes About Criticism

• It is the beginning of all true criticism of our time to realize that it has really nothing to say, at the very moment when it has invented so tremendous a trumpet for saying it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Power, Criticism, Speech

• The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Artist, Creative, Criticism

  The Innocence of Father Brown "The Blue Cross" (1911)

• What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Self, Criticism, Excess

  "Sidelights on New London and Newer New York : And Other Essays". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1932.

• There are two ways of dealing with nonsense in this world. One way is to put nonsense in the right place; as when people put nonsense into nursery rhymes. The other is to put nonsense in the wrong place; as when they put it into educational addresses, psychological criticisms, and complaints against nursery rhymes or other normal amusements of mankind.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Educational, Two, People

  "Child Psychology and Nonsense" by Gilbert K. Chesterton, October 15, 1921.

• In the modern conflict between the Smile and the Laugh, I am all in favor of laughing. The recent stage of culture and criticism might very well be summed up as the men who smile criticizing the men who laugh.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Laughing, Criticism

• Criticism is only words about words, and of what use are words about such words as these?

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Criticism, Use

• A great deal of contemporary criticism reads to me like a man saying, 'Of course I do not like green cheese. I am very fond of brown sherry.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Criticism, Green

  1933 All I Survey,'On Jonathan Swift'.

• Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Mean, Criticism, Boots

  "Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens". Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1911.

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