quotations about criticism
A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Feb. 2, 1712
They that censure, should practice. Or else let them have the first stone, and the last too.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Give a critic an inch, he’ll write a play.
JOHN STEINBECK
"On Critics,", Writers at Work
A man who can't take a word of criticism hears it the most.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
Criticism must never be sharpened into anatomy. The delicate veins of fancy may be traced, and the rich blood, that gives bloom and health to the complexion of thought, be resolved into its elements. Stop there. The life of the imagination, as of the body, disappears when we pursue it.
ROBERT ARIS WILLMOTT
Pleasures of Literature
You have one of two choices. Either you can panic and start making frantic attempts to reform under the glare of these awful critical eyes, or you can just say, "The hell with you! I know what I'm doing. If you don't yet, it's because you haven't given me an attentive reading.
SAUL BELLOW
Q & A at Howard Community College, Feb. 1986
Criticism discloses that which it would fain conceal, but conceals that which it professes to disclose; it is therefore, read by the discerning, not to discover the merits of an author, but the motives of his critic.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
I am more afraid of deserving criticism than of receiving it.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Kavanagh: A Tale
One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist, just as a man becomes a stool pigeon when he cannot be a soldier.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
letter to Madame Louise Colet, Oct. 22, 1846
The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
As a matter of fact, we are none of us above criticism; so let us bear with each other's faults.
L. FRANK BAUM
The Marvelous Land of Oz
Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then criticism will gradually yield to him.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
A cruel critic has never made anything; his glibness is a way of inflicting his emptiness on others.
JOHN LAHR
"Questions for John Lahr", The New Yorker, Jan. 23, 2009
If criticism had any real power to harm, the skunk would have been extinct by now.
FRED ALLEN
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
The perfect critic is one ... that sees with the eyes of posterity.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Reproof is a medicine, like mercury or opium; if it be improperly administered, it will do harm instead of good.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Where there are critical books of immense plexity and learning, dealing, but often at second or third-hand, with original work -- novels, plays, stories. The people who write these books form a stratum in universities across the world -- they are an international phenomenon, the top layer of literary academia. Their lives are spent in criticizing, and in criticizing each other's criticism. They at least regard this activity as more important than the original work. It is possible for literary students to spend more time reading criticism and criticism of criticism than they spend reading poetry, novels, biography, stories. A great many people regard this state of affairs as quite normal, and not sad and ridiculous.
DORIS LESSING
Partisan Review, 1973
Some critics, and for that matter most of them, I fear, rejoice in faults as buzzards do in carrion, to feed upon it; but a true critic is a surgeon, who cuts away the wen, or imposthume, that he may rejoice in the cleanness of a body restored to health.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.
OSCAR WILDE
Art and Morality
Optimists don't internalize pain or criticism. They take it for what it is worth and carry on.
ROBERT M. SHERFIELD
The Everything Self-Esteem Book