Critics Quotes - Page 4

• Critics must excuse me if I compare them to certain animals called asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them.

  William Shenstone

  Animal, Vines, Pruning

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.127

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• Why will you be always sallying out to break lances with other people's wind-mills, when your own is not capable of grinding corn for the horse you ride?

  J. G. Holland

  Horse, Wind, People

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 168, 1895.

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  To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen" by Elbert Hubbard, (p. 370), 1898.

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• I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.

  Georgia O'Keeffe

  Criticism, Flattery, Drains

  Dennis Abrams, Georgia O'Keeffe (2009). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, p.70, Infobase Publishing

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• A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Should Have, Criticism, Stomach

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• The critic's symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else's dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.

  Mark Twain

  Editors, Eggs, Bugs

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.53, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• It is not the critic who counts...The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Success, Courage, Badass

  Address at the Sorbonne, Paris, 23 Apr. 1910. Richard M. Nixon quoted this passage in his address to the nation announcing his decision to resign the presidency, 8 Aug. 1974. See Theodore Roosevelt 1; Theodore Roosevelt 2; Theodore Roosevelt 5

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• A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

  James Russell Lowell

  Wise, Wisdom, Criticism

  "Literary Essays, vol. III". Book by James Russell Lowell, 1870-1890.

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• Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.

  Brendan Behan

  Funny, Editors, Criticism

  "ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER; Breathing Rarefied Air", www.nytimes.com. May 6, 1990.

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• Now in reality, the world has paid too great a compliment to critics, and has imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.

  Henry Fielding

  Reality, Men, Criticism

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• Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Artist, Literature, Never Trust

  Studies in Classic American Literature (1923) ch. 1

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• If you have no critics you'll likely have no success.

  Malcolm X

  Motivational, Success, Congratulations

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• 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

  Criticism, Glitter, Weak Points

  Edith Wharton, Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis, Nancy Lewis (1988). “The letters of Edith Wharton”, Macmillan Reference USA

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• The man who becomes a critic by trade ceases, in reality, to be one at all.

  Henry Theodore Tuckerman

  Reality, Men, He Man

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• 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

  Stupid, Race, Despair

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.946, Delphi Classics

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• Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic - a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Giving, Criticism

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The critic as artist (low cost). Limited edition”, p.69, Oscar Wilde

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• I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.

  Victor Hugo

  Criticism, Verses

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• On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Mind, Criticism

  'The Importance of Being Earnest' (1895) act 2

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• A louse in the locks of literature.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Criticism, Locks, Literature

  Said of Churton Collins to Edmund Gosse, in Evan Charteris 'Life and Letters of Sir Edmund Gosse' (1931) ch. 14

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• That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography.

  Oscar Wilde

  Philosophy, Real, Soul

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.365, University of Chicago Press

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• Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.

  John Berger

  Mean, Cutting, Past

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• 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 Bruyere

  Hard Work, Men, Hands

  "Of Books". "Characters", Book by Jean De La Bruyère, www.ourcivilisation.com. 1688.

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• The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't.

  William Faulkner

  Writing, Artist, Editors

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• A critic is a man created to praise greater men than himself, but he is never able to find them.

  Richard Le Gallienne

  Men, Able, Praise

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• No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Determination, Degrees, Fascinating

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