Quotes and Sayings about Criticism
"Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity."
- Joseph Addison
(Related: Criticism, Defense, Obscurity)
"Few are there that will leave the secure seclusion of the scholar's life, the peaceful walks of literature and learning, to stand out a target for the criticism of unkind and hostile minds."
- Felix Adler
(Related: Life, Criticism, Learning, Literature, Will)
"Sympathy is the first condition of criticism."
- Henri Frederic Amiel
(Related: Sympathy, Criticism, First)
"Action and faith enslave thought, both of them in order not be troubled or inconvenienced by reflection, criticism, and doubt."
- Henri Frederic Amiel
(Related: Faith, Thought, Action, Criticism, Doubt, Order, Reflection)
"Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure."
- Kingsley Amis
(Related: Action, Virtue, Criticism, First, Self)
"I believe in criticism."
- Paul Anka
(Related: Criticism)
"National leaders who find themselves wilting under the withering criticisms by members of the media, would do well not to take such criticism personally but to regard the media as their allies in keeping the government clean and honest, its services."
- Corazon Aquino
(Related: Government, Criticism, Leaders, Media)
"Poetry; a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty."
- Matthew Arnold
(Related: Beauty, Life, Truth, Poetry, Criticism, Laws)
"Criticism really used to hurt me. Most of these critics are usually frustrated artists, and they criticise other people's art because they can't do it themselves. It's a really disgusting job. They must feel horrible inside."
- Rosanna Arquette
(Related: Art, People, Artists, Criticism, Hurt, Job)
"Dare to risk public criticism."
- Mary Kay Ash
(Related: Criticism, Public, Risk)
"Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise."
- Mary Kay Ash
(Related: Criticism, Praise)
"Maybe it's legitimate criticism, though it can be hurtful. Maybe I haven't paid sufficient attention to the people with whom I would have a natural affinity as a liberal, and they feel let down by that."
- Paddy Ashdown
(Related: People, Attention, Criticism, Liberal)
"Give no time to finding fault of criticism."
- Marvin J. Ashton
(Related: Time, Criticism, Fault)
"We always expect tremendous criticism. It is my role to be the lightning rod ... to attract the attacks against the organization for our work, and that is a difficult role. On the other hand, I get undue credit."
- Julian Assange
(Related: Work, Credit, Criticism)
"There are few circumstances which so strongly distinguish the philosopher, as the calmness with which he can reply to criticisms he may think undeservedly severe."
- Charles Babbage
(Related: Circumstances, May)
"Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed."
- Charles Babbage
(Related: Science, Criticism)
"If we are to have such a discipline we must have standards, and to get our standards under existing conditions we must have criticism."
- Irving Babbitt
(Related: Discipline, Criticism)
"According to my principles, every master has his true and certain value. Praise and criticism cannot change any of that. Only the work itself praises and criticizes the master, and therefore I leave to everyone his own value."
- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
(Related: Change, Work, Criticism, Praise, Principles, Value)
"Critics can be your most important friend. I don't read criticism of my stuff only because when it's bad, it's rough-and when it's good, it's not good enough."
- Kevin Bacon
(Related: Friend, Criticism)
"In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring."
- Enid Bagnold
(Related: Marriage, Wedding, Accusations, Criticism, Luxury, Manners, May)
"There is one criticism which cannot be leveled at interparliamentary conferences but which is applicable to a great extent to peace congresses: the meetings waste time."
- Fredrik Bajer
(Related: Peace, Time, Criticism, Meetings, Waste)
"I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure."
- Mikhail Bakunin
(Related: Intelligence, Knowledge, Character, Censure, Criticism, Respect, Right)
"Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that."
- Steve Ballmer
(Related: Criticism, Culture, Talking)
"Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is like a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle."
- Balthus
(Related: Experience, Work, Consciousness, Criticism, Painting, Self, Struggle)
"To love without criticism is to be betrayed."
- Djuna Barnes
(Related: Love, Criticism)
"It is from the womb of art that criticism was born."
- Charles Baudelaire
(Related: Art, Criticism)
"I have the worst ear for criticism; even when I have created a stage set I like, I always hear the woman in the back of the dress circle who says she doesn't like blue."
- Cecil Beaton
(Related: Criticism, Dress, Woman)
"Politics calls for robust debate and criticism, but this should never descend to personal and demeaning slurs."
- Kim Beazley
(Related: Politics, Criticism, Debate)
"The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion."
- Walter Benjamin
(Related: Art, Ideas, Criticism, Fashion)
"The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion."
- Walter Benjamin
(Related: Art, Criticism, Enjoyment, Public)
"Anytime you put a movie out it's subject to such scrutiny and such criticism."
- Halle Berry
(Related: Criticism)
"The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy."
- Bjork
(Related: People, Comedy, Country, Criticism, English)
"Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press."
- Hugo Black
(Related: Government, Criticism, Free speech, Freedom, Press, Right)
"I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist."
- Harold Bloom
(Related: Criticism, Literature)
"Criticism starts - it has to start - with a real passion for reading. It can come in adolescence, even in your twenties, but you must fall in love with poems."
- Harold Bloom
(Related: Love, Adolescence, Criticism, Passion, Poems, Reading)
"Criticism in the universities, I'll have to admit, has entered a phase where I am totally out of sympathy with 95% of what goes on. It's Stalinism without Stalin."
- Harold Bloom
(Related: Sympathy, Criticism)
"There has certainly been criticism of the timing involved in getting help to the victims of the storm, and much of it may indeed be warranted. However, this is not the time for pointing fingers; rather, it is the time for offering a helping hand to our neighbors in need."
- Jo Bonner
(Related: Time, Criticism, Help, May, Neighbors, Victims)
"People say you should read your criticism because it will make you a better person but it doesn't. It just makes you a sad bitter old showbiz nightmare."
- Jo Brand
(Related: People, Criticism, Old, Will)
"There is more criticism of puritanism, and more distance from Christian morality, than there has been before."
- Susie Bright
(Related: Morality, Christian, Criticism)
"I mean, the part you don't like, I mean, that's the only part. That's the part no one likes, and that is the criticisms, and the unfair criticisms, I might add, of my husband. But that's also just a fact of life in politics."
- Laura Bush
(Related: Life, Politics, HusbFact)
"The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon."
- Charles Buxton
(Related: Criticism)
"Silence is sometimes the severest criticism."
- Charles Buxton
(Related: Criticism, Silence)
"Association with my pupils has kept me young in my work. Criticism of their work has kept my own point of view clear."
- William Merritt Chase
(Related: Work, Criticism)
"But I think the bottom line right now is to take the constructive criticism and use that to build toward, as I say, the hurricane season that is 100 days away. And we don't have a lot of time to waste before we start to address that next set of challenges."
- Michael Chertoff
(Related: Time, Criticism, Now, Right, Waste)
"And I have to say, I agree with some of the criticisms that some have made about that state program which allocates the grant money on a very rigid formula all across the country, with a certain percentage to each state."
- Michael Chertoff
(Related: Money, Country, Formula, State)
"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things."
- Winston Churchill
(Related: Attention, Body, Criticism, May, Pain, State)
"Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves."
- Emile M. Cioran
(Related: Criticism)
"We're all generous, but with different things, like time, money, talent - criticism."
- Frank Howard Clark
(Related: Money, Time, Talent, Criticism)
"Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots."
- Frank Howard Clark
(Related: Growth, Criticism, Man, Rain)
"That does not mean that we must forego just and fair criticism, or refrain from opposition to policies which are debatable or which do not command our approval."
- Bainbridge Colby
(Related: Approval, Criticism, Opposition)
"Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive."
- Henry Steele Commager
(Related: Men, Patriotism, Authority, Criticism, Will)
"Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters."
- Joseph Conrad
(Related: Criticism, Expression, Garden, Letters)
"One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide."
- Charles Horton Cooley
(Related: Work, Mind, Self, Suicide)
"I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise."
- Noel Coward
(Related: Love, Criticism, Praise)
"Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book."
- Malcolm Cowley
(Related: Criticism)
"I'm still trying to discover my position on my own artwork and hopefully at this exhibition someone will come and tell me. I'm open to listening to criticism."
- Graham Coxon
(Related: Criticism, Listening, Open, Trying, Will)
"The important thing to me is that I'm not driven by people's praise and I'm not slowed down by people's criticism. I'm just trying to work at the highest level I can."
- Russell Crowe
(Related: Work, People, Criticism, Praise, Trying)
"If you're going to get into social criticism with absurdity and satire, you can't be politically correct when you do that."
- John Cusack
(Related: Absurdity, Criticism, Satire)
"Spanking and verbal criticism have become, to many parents, more important tools of child rearing than approval."
- Phil Donahue
(Related: Approval, Criticism, Parents, Tools)
"I've encountered a lot of people who sound like critics but very few who have substantive criticisms. There is a lot of skepticism, but it seems to be more a matter of inertia than it is of people having some real reason for thinking something else."
- K. Eric Drexler
(Related: People, Reason, Skepticism, Sound, Thinking)
"I think the criticism that I take to heart is from other writers that I respect."
- Steve Earle
(Related: Heart, Criticism, Respect, Writers)
"No American soldier should be allowed to set foot on Iranian soil, regardless of the criticism we have of the Iranian government."
- Shirin Ebadi
(Related: Government, American, Criticism)
"I'll tell you, I think that the Internet has provided an enormous boost to film criticism by giving people an opportunity to self publish or to find sites that are friendly."
- Roger Ebert
(Related: People, Opportunity, Criticism, Film, Giving, Internet, Self)
"Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms."
- George Eliot
(Related: Animals, Friends, Questions)
"Most people would have given up when faced with all the criticism I've received over the years."
- Albert Ellis
(Related: People, Criticism, Years)
"I'm easy to work with, not a pushover, but I respond to criticism and find it inspiring."
- Ben Elton
(Related: Work, Criticism, Inspiring)
"Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still."
- Frederick William Faber
(Related: Thoughts, Being, Deeds, Thinking, Words)
"The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film."
- Rainer W. Fassbinder
(Related: Dream, Criticism, Film, Hollywood)
"All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science."
- Leslie Fiedler
(Related: Art, History, Science, Criticism)
"But, when I had this feeling and started painting sacred art, as I had this feeling to do, then it come to me: my problem is I'll get a lot of criticism and another problem is my work's not good enough to sell."
- Howard Finster
(Related: Art, Work, Criticism, Feeling, Painting)
"The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens."
- Gustave Flaubert
(Related: Work, Criticism, Fleas)
"Two cheers for Democracy; one because it admits variety, and two because it permits criticism."
- E. M. Forster
(Related: Criticism, Democracy, Variety)
"So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism."
- E. M. Forster
(Related: Criticism, Variety)
"Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think, creation's."
- E. M. Forster
(Related: Creation, Criticism)
"I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love."
- Robert Frank
(Related: Life, Love, Criticism, Indifference, Opinion)
"Graham Greene, as I understand it, was quite outspoken in his criticism of American foreign policy."
- Brendan Fraser
(Related: Policy, American, Criticism, Foreign policy)
"The use of criticism, in periodical writing, is to sift, not to stamp a work."
- Margaret Fuller
(Related: Work, Criticism, Writing)
"Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
(Related: People, Being, Criticism, Extreme, Freedom, Grave, Laziness, Literary)
"The point of literary criticism in anthropology is not to replace research, but to find out how it is that we are persuasive."
- Clifford Geertz
(Related: Anthropology, Criticism, Literary, Research)
"You are never really prepared for criticism."
- Barry Gibb
(Related: Criticism)
"In my opinion, the most significant works of the twentieth century are those that rise beyond the conceptual tyranny of genre; they are, at the same time, poetry, criticism, narrative, drama, etc."
- Juan Goytisolo
(Related: Poetry, Time, Criticism, Drama, Opinion, Tyranny)
"Time and time again I was told that I would never make the film on time and never make it on budget. That kind of criticism tends to turn me into a great big motor of efficiency."
- Richard E. Grant
(Related: Time, Criticism, Efficiency, Film)
"Obviously there will be a backlash. If you believe the hype you have to believe a backlash too. Any criticism we get, is always stuff we've already criticised ourselves."
- Johnny Greenwood
(Related: Criticism, Will)
"To test a modest man's modesty do not investigate if he ignores applause, find out if he abides criticism."
- Franz Grillparzer
(Related: Applause, Criticism, Man, Modesty)
"It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not."
- Alfred Whitney Griswold
(Related: Criticism)
"So as an amateur Olympic competitor I loved criticism, because it made me better. But now as a professional I don't really know how to channel it or where to take it, so I don't take it quite as well."
- Scott Hamilton
(Related: Criticism, Now)
"There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds."
- G. H. Hardy
(Related: Men, Work, Appreciation, Criticism)
"You just never give up, no matter how hard the challenges are, and observe this world with a healthy dose of criticism and don't just follow the herd like somebody else might do."
- Renny Harlin
(Related: Criticism, World)
"He only profits from praise who values criticism."
- Heinrich Heine
(Related: Values, Criticism, Praise)
"If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married."
- Katharine Hepburn
(Related: Men, Sacrifice, Admiration, Criticism, Want)
"I mean no film is beyond criticism, but I think we've made a very modest movie."
- Walter Hill
(Related: Criticism, Film)
"Criticism and pessimism destroy families, undermine institutions of all kinds, defeat nearly everyone, and spread a shroud of gloom over entire nations."
- Gordon B. Hinckley
(Related: Pessimism, Criticism, Defeat, Nations)
"I'm vulnerable to criticism. Any artist is, because you work alone in your studio and, until recently, critics were the only way you'd get any feedback."
- Howard Hodgkin
(Related: Work, Artist, Criticism)
"A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else."
- Richard Hofstadter
(Related: Character, Being, Criticism, University)
"To silence criticism is to silence freedom."
- Sidney Hook
(Related: Criticism, Freedom, Silence)
"The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic."
- A. E. Housman
(Related: Conservative, Criticism, Man)
"Don't abuse your friends and expect them to consider it criticism."
- Edgar Watson Howe
(Related: Abuse, Criticism, Friends)
"The most destructive criticism is indifference."
- Edgar Watson Howe
(Related: Criticism, Indifference)
"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing."
- Elbert Hubbard
(Related: Criticism, Nothing)
"The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment."
- Elbert Hubbard
(Related: Greatness, Being, Criticism, Lies, Proof, Resentment)
"A state that suppresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law."
- Kurt Huber
(Related: Criticism, Freedom, Improvement, Law, Speech, State, Treason)
"Philosophers, as things now stand, are all too fond of offering criticism from on high instead of studying and understanding things from within."
- Edmund Husserl
(Related: Criticism, Now, Understanding)
"There is only one justification for universities, as distinguished from trade schools. They must be centers of criticism."
- Robert M. Hutchins
(Related: Criticism, Justification, Schools, Trade)
"The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour."
- William James
(Related: Power, Nature, Alcohol, Earth, Facts, Human nature, Mankind)
"I have been both praised and criticized. The criticism stung, but the praise sometimes bothered me even more. To have received such praise and honors has always been puzzling to me."
- Billy Joel
(Related: Criticism, Praise)
"Christ, he was paranoid about criticism. I used to say: why doesn't he worry about the team and forget what people are saying? He got Phil Thompson, who was a kid coming through when I was a Liverpool player, to have a go at me. So now I don't talk to him."
- Ian St. John
(Related: People, Christ, Criticism, Forget, Now, Saying, Talk, Worry)
"In a way, a certain amount of self-criticism is a good thing, because it keeps you humble. Realizing that no matter what success you've achieved, you can still make enemies makes you humble, too."
- Lynn Johnston
(Related: Success, Enemies, Self)
"Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance or a stranger."
- Franklin P. Jones
(Related: Friend, Acquaintance, Criticism)
"Persecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it."
- Howard Mumford Jones
(Related: Society, Criticism, First, Law, Persecution)
"I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses."
- Johann Kepler
(Related: Approval, Criticism, Man)
"Political criticism is our enemies' best friend."
- Bernard Kerik
(Related: Friend, Criticism, Enemies)
"Directors who turn into big babies and shut out criticism stop learning."
- Richard King
(Related: Babies, Criticism, Learning)
"I've had trouble with criticism, I guess. It's hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them."
- Kenneth Koch
(Related: People, Encouraging, Criticism, Poets, Trouble)
"If I were white, I'd get less criticism."
- Lenny Kravitz
(Related: Criticism)
"I think there are different ways of being rigorous, and I am asking people to be as rigorous in their pleasure as in their criticism."
- Barbara Kruger
(Related: People, Being, Criticism, Pleasure)
"Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical accidents, soon forgotten."
- Milan Kundera
(Related: Accidents, Criticism)
"Colonial governors and senior civil servants are not easy people to argue with, and I was not popular because of my criticism of the colonial service in Kenya."
- Louis Leakey
(Related: People, Criticism, Popular, Service)
"The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy."
- Robert E. Lee
(Related: Policy, Honesty, Conviction, Criticism, Man, Right, Saying)
"I think my work shows that I love women. I understand where these types of criticisms are coming from because black people have been so dogged out in the media, they're just extra sensitive."
- Spike Lee
(Related: Love, Work, Women, People, Media)
"Coughing in the theater is not a respiratory ailment. It is a criticism."
- Alan Jay Lerner
(Related: Criticism, Theater)
"The other part of our proposal that gets the 'dittoheads' upset is our suggestion that the commercial radio station owners either play by the rules or pay. In other words, if they don't want to be subject to local criticism of how they are meeting their license obligations, they should pay to support public broadcasters who will operate on behalf of the local community."
- Mark Lloyd
(Related: Community, Criticism, Meeting, Play, Public, Rules, Support, Want, Will, Words)
"The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Related: Strength, Criticism, Lies, Weakness)
"Dodi got a lot of criticism when he began dating Princess Diana. No one seemed to think he was good enough for her."
- Lorna Luft
(Related: Dating, Criticism)
"Conservative New Testament studies could also provide an intellectually satisfying alternative to German biblical criticism and to the liberal theology that accompanied it."
- John Gresham Machen
(Related: Conservative, Criticism, Liberal, New testament, Theology)
"I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Experience, Politics, Criticism, Ignorance)
"People ask for criticism, but they only want praise."
- W. Somerset Maugham
(Related: People, Criticism, Praise, Want)
"In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept constructive criticism. Without one-hundred percent dedication, you won't be able to do this."
- Willie Mays
(Related: Work, Criticism, Dedication, Order)
"Also, the commercial media in a superior position, really, to any other corporate lobby, because where would people hear about commercial media or corporate media criticism, where would they hear criticism of them other than in the commercial media?"
- Robert McChesney
(Related: People, Corporate, Criticism, Media)
"Criticism is prejudice made plausible."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Criticism, Prejudice)
"Crystallize your goals. Make a plan for achieving them and set yourself a deadline. Then, with supreme confidence, determination and disregard for obstacles and other people's criticisms, carry out your plan."
- Paul J. Meyer
(Related: People, Determination, Goals, Confidence, Obstacles)
"Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire."
- Henry Miller
(Related: Criticism, Fire, Passion)
"I think the hardest part about being a teenager is dealing with other teenagers - the criticism and the ridicule, the gossip and rumors."
- Beverley Mitchell
(Related: Being, Criticism, Gossip, Ridicule, Rumors, Teenagers)
"In every society in human history, including the United States, those in power seek to imbue themselves with the attributes of religion and patriotism as a way of getting greater support for their policy and insulating themselves from any criticism."
- George J. Mitchell
(Related: Patriotism, Power, Religion, Society, History, Policy, Criticism, states, Support, United)
"I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good."
- Van Morrison
(Related: Music, Criticism, Value, Years)
"For the first half of this century, High Court judges have been cautious to the point of timidity in expressing any criticism of governmental action; the independence of the judiciary has been of a decidedly subordinate character."
- Ferdinand Mount
(Related: Action, Character, Court, Criticism, First, Independence, Judges, Timidity)
"Never feel that a piece of criticism or advice is too much trouble to give, or that it exceeds your province."
- Lord Mountbatten
(Related: Advice, Criticism, Trouble)
"Criticism is the art of appraising others at one's own value."
- George Jean Nathan
(Related: Art, Criticism, Value)
"Criticism is the windows and chandeliers of art: it illuminates the enveloping darkness in which art might otherwise rest only vaguely discernible, and perhaps altogether unseen."
- George Jean Nathan
(Related: Art, Criticism, Darkness, Rest, Windows)
"In a way, I have to have a dictatorship. I can't be told that I'm wrong. That conflicts with what I was saying earlier about listening. It isn't to do with receiving criticism and responding to other views, it's who has that last decision."
- Trevor Nunn
(Related: Decision, Criticism, Dictatorship, Listening, Saying, Wrong)
"If you can't fully believe in your ideas, it very quickly communicates to a group of actors who need something to hold onto. They need to believe that whatever criticism, whatever comment is received, is meant."
- Trevor Nunn
(Related: Ideas, Actors, Criticism)
"I'm a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it's terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don't like."
- Sandra Day O'Connor
(Related: People, Action, Criticism, Decisions, Help)
"In the recent years there have been criticisms levelled against Japan suggesting that she should offer more military forces to the United Nations forces and thereby play a more active role in the keeping and restoration of peace in various parts of the world."
- Kenzaburo Oe
(Related: Peace, Military, Nations, Play, United, World, Years)
"Praise and criticism seem to me to operate exactly on the same level. If you get a great review, it's really thrilling for about ten minutes. If you get a bad review, it's really crushing for ten minutes. Either way, you go on."
- Ann Patchett
(Related: Criticism, Praise)
"Philosophical theories or ideas, as points of view, instruments of criticism, may help us to gather up what might otherwise pass unregarded by us."
- Walter Pater
(Related: Ideas, Criticism, Help, May, Theories)
"What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism."
- Octavio Paz
(Related: Art, Criticism)
"Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings."
- Octavio Paz
(Related: Criticism, Grammar)
"The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism."
- Norman Vincent Peale
(Related: Criticism, Praise, Trouble)
"Early in the morning, I fell in love with the girl that later on became my wife. At that time, we were so naive. I wanted to charm her, so I read her Capital by Marx. I thought somehow she would be convinced by the strength of his criticism about capital."
- Shimon Peres
(Related: Love, Time, Wife, Thought, Strength, Charm, Criticism)
"Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism."
- Wendell Phillips
(Related: Boredom, Criticism)
"I much prefer a compliment, even if insincere, to sincere criticism."
- Titus Maccius Plautus
(Related: Compliment, Criticism)
"In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me."
- Edgar Allan Poe
(Related: Friend, Purpose, Criticism, Nothing, Will)
"Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths."
- Karl Popper
(Related: Science, Criticism, Myths)
"As a piece of literacy criticism, Freud's best writing is about Dostoyevsky. It's a kind of displaced literacy criticism."
- Dennis Potter
(Related: Criticism, Writing)
"I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later."
- Ezra Pound
(Related: Work, Criticism, Excitement, Value, Writer, Writing)
"What we don't need in country music is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgement of what belongs and what doesn't."
- Charley Pride
(Related: Music, Country, Country music, Criticism, Public)
"What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism."
- Philip Pullman
(Related: Criticism, Help, Trying, Years)
"Though bitter, good medicine cures illness. Though it may hurt, loyal criticism will have beneficial effects."
- Sima Qian
(Related: Criticism, Hurt, Illness, May, Medicine, Will)
"For years Don Imus was just - boy, he was merciless in his criticism of me. Maybe it was justified, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt."
- Dan Rather
(Related: Criticism, Hurt, Years)
"If you keep your feathers well oiled the water of criticism will run off as from a duck's back."
- Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards
(Related: Criticism, Water, Will)
"My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate, which had a commentary track that wasn't even the filmmakers, it was a professor, some film criticism guy who just happen to be this amazing commentator who went off into the whole theory of comedy."
- Jay Roach
(Related: Comedy, Criticism, Favorite, Film, Theory)
"I'm fairly competant as a director and actor, but I am Mr. Neurotic as a writer. I just don't have enough confidence in my abilities to take criticism well. I take it personally. Start with 'It's a masterpiece,' and then tell me what you think could be changed."
- Tim Robbins
(Related: Actor, Confidence, Criticism, Writer)
"Nobody is that thick-skinned that it doesn't hurt you. Still, you always know what happens in football. I have got used to criticism, I suppose, having been high profile with England and Man U."
- Bryan Robson
(Related: Criticism, EnglFootball, Hurt, Man)
"Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Wisdom, People, Criticism, Praise)
"My criticism is too severe sometimes and that is not good. But why don't you start doing your work unless your leader flies into a rage? It is not that you cannot do it but that you don't want to do it."
- Zhu Rongji
(Related: Work, Leader, Criticism, Flies, Want)
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public."
- Theodore Roosevelt
(Related: American, Criticism, President, Public)
"Criticism, even when you try to ignore it, can hurt. I have cried over many articles written about me, but I move on and I don't hold on to that ."
- Diana Ross
(Related: Criticism, Hurt)
"You can't operate a company by fear, because the way to eliminate fear is to avoid criticism. And the way to avoid criticism is to do nothing."
- Steve Ross
(Related: Fear, Company, Criticism, Nothing)
"I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan."
- Jean Rostand
(Related: Criticism, Opposition, Praise)
"We can do things the cheap way, the simple way, for the short-term and without regard for the future. Or, we can make the extra effort, do the hard work, absorb the criticism and make decisions that will cause a better future."
- Mike Rounds
(Related: Work, Cause, Criticism, Decisions, Effort, Future, Hard work, Will)
"When a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead of compliments, he forgets that it was not his good judgment, but his charming manners, that won her heart."
- Helen Rowland
(Related: Time, Wife, Heart, Advice, Compliments, Criticism, Giving, Judgment, Man, Manners)
"A woman's flattery may inflate a man's head a little; but her criticism goes straight to his heart, and contracts it so that it can never again hold quite as much love for her."
- Helen Rowland
(Related: Love, Heart, Criticism, Flattery, Man, May, Woman)
"I think the big thing I've had going for me in that regard has been the success of the league. I don't have quite as much control over things as people believe, so I frequently receive more credit than I deserve, and occasionally more criticism as well."
- Pete Rozelle
(Related: Success, People, Control, Credit, Criticism)
"Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive."
- Donald Rumsfeld
(Related: Criticism, May, Publicity)
"Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: People, Criticism, Departure)
"Despite a decade of criticism and budget cuts, the specialised UN agencies have far more expertise and hands-on experience than any other organisations in the world."
- Jeffrey Sachs
(Related: Experience, Criticism, Expertise, World)
"Self-deception ultimately explains Japan's plight. The Japanese have never accepted that change is in their interest - and not merely a response to U.S. criticism."
- Paul Samuelson
(Related: Change, Criticism, Interest, Self)
"The supposed inferiority of a constructed language to a national one on the score of richness of connotation is, of course, no criticism of the idea of a constructed language."
- Edward Sapir
(Related: Inferiority, Idea, Criticism, Language, Richness)
"After the many rumours that we had heard about Hitler and the published criticisms we had read about him, we were pleasantly impressed. His appearance was neither pretentious nor affected."
- Hjalmar Schacht
(Related: Appearance)
"I think Mr. Clarke had a tendency to interfere too much with the activities of the CIA, and our leadership at the senior level let him interfere too much. So criticism from him I kind of wear as a badge of honor."
- Michael Scheuer
(Related: Leadership, Criticism, Honor)
"The worst censors are those prohibiting criticism of the theory of evolution in the classroom."
- Phyllis Schlafly
(Related: Classroom, Criticism, Evolution, Theory)
"The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history."
- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
(Related: History, Character, Criticism, Experts, Favorite, Nation)
"I still think like a critic, and I still analyze films like a critic. However, it's not possible to write criticism if you're making films."
- Paul Schrader
(Related: Criticism)
"Most criticism of advertising is written in ignorance of what actually happens inside these agencies."
- Michael Schudson
(Related: Advertising, Criticism, Ignorance)
"I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism."
- Charles Schwab
(Related: Work, Approval, Criticism, Effort, Man, Spirit)
"I would guess that any criticism about Wal-Mart could have some element of truth with 1,500,000 people."
- Lee Scott
(Related: Truth, People, Criticism)
"I have an intense dislike for artificial society. In France, one could lead a free life - to do what one wanted to do without interference or criticism from one's neighbors."
- Robert W. Service
(Related: Life, Society, Criticism, France, Neighbors)
"To what derision should I be exposed from a thousand quarters!- An unlearned female entering the lists of criticism against the mighty Johnson!"
- Anne Seward
(Related: Criticism)
"The dread of criticism is the death of genius."
- William Gilmore Simms
(Related: Death, Genius, Criticism)
"Neither praise or blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe, and honestly to award. These are the true aims and duties of criticism."
- William Gilmore Simms
(Related: Blame, Criticism, Praise)
"One of the things that upset me was some of the criticism leveled at Simon and Garfunkel. I always took exception to it, but actually I agree with a lot of it."
- Paul Simon
(Related: Criticism)
"Lovers of literature will look for the remains of the golden treasure in that shipwreck on the bottom of the sea of criticism."
- Josef Skvorecky
(Related: Criticism, Literature, Lovers, Sea, Shipwreck, Treasure, Will)
"Every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration. Constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought."
- Margaret Chase Smith
(Related: Being, Consideration, Courtesy, Criticism)
"The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means."
- Susan Sontag
(Related: Art, Experience, Criticism, Now)
"The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism."
- Wole Soyinka
(Related: Absence, Criticism, Freedom)
"There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife."
- Stephen Spender
(Related: Criticism, Justice)
"Somehow I took whatever criticism there was very much to heart."
- Dusty Springfield
(Related: Heart, Criticism)
"Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, - though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, - the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!"
- Laurence Sterne
(Related: Criticism, May, World)
"I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art."
- Anne Stevenson
(Related: Art, Science, Criticism, Help, Jargon, Literary, Literature)
"Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry."
- Anne Stevenson
(Related: Poetry, Criticism, Poets)
"There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic."
- Anne Stevenson
(Related: Criticism, Literary, Wrong)
"For all my criticisms of the current system, it doesn't mean that I would like to return to the old one."
- Helen Suzman
(Related: Old)
"Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government."
- Robert Taft
(Related: Government, Time, War, Criticism)
"This issue, if not addressed, leaves any President, including George Bush, open to the criticism that they are essentially ignoring the destruction of the nation and I believe that with all my heart."
- Tom Tancredo
(Related: Heart, Criticism, Destruction, Nation, Open, President)
"Dramatic experience is not logical; it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form."
- Allen Tate
(Related: Experience, Criticism, May)
"I can take criticisms but not compliments."
- James Taylor
(Related: Compliments)
"I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness."
- Henry David Thoreau
(Related: Truth, Bitterness, Criticism, Man)
"There is no just and serene criticism as yet."
- Henry David Thoreau
(Related: Criticism)
"Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art."
- Harry S. Truman
(Related: Art, Life, Criticism)
"Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea."
- John Updike
(Related: Poetry, Criticism, Fiction, Open, Sea, Writing)
"I think that's unjustified criticism. We have had a number of measures in place in this country for several years to mitigate the possibility of mad cow spreading in this country. We have found a single case."
- Ann Veneman
(Related: Possibility, Country, Criticism, Years)
"We've got a daunting enough task to provide a definitive account of what happened in 9/11, without fear or favor, something that will last and will survive criticism over time. And we think we can do that with integrity in a bipartisan report."
- Richard Ben Veniste
(Related: Time, Fear, Criticism, Integrity, Will)
"It would be very easy for us to do a collection that everybody would like and not criticize. But criticism is a part of life. You have to take it."
- Donatella Versace
(Related: Life, Criticism)
"Many French directors, having now realised there was no more real criticism, that the standards of the past have gone, are very offended about the quality of film criticism."
- Wim Wenders
(Related: Quality, Criticism, Film, Now, Past)
"In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world - in America first but also in Europe - has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance."
- Wim Wenders
(Related: Age, America, Being, Criticism, Europe, Film, First, World)
"Of course the French are making very credible movies and it is still one of the greatest nations in terms of world cinema but the real problem is the decay in film criticism."
- Wim Wenders
(Related: Movies, Cinema, Criticism, Film, Nations, World)
"The culture of independent film criticism has totally gone down the drain and this seems to come with the territory of the consumer age that we are now living in."
- Wim Wenders
(Related: Age, Criticism, Culture, Film, Living, Now)
"Everything is entertainment; criticism is now entertainment and it seems that the French directors have woken up one day and suddenly realised that they were not backed up any more."
- Wim Wenders
(Related: Criticism, Day, Entertainment, Now)
"I don't take criticism lying down."
- William Westmoreland
(Related: Criticism, Lying)
"I think that my main criticism in that book was directed at the general assumption that adaptation characterizes populations and species, rather than simply the individuals in the populations and species."
- George C. Williams
(Related: Criticism)
"You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one."
- John Wooden
(Related: Criticism, Praise, Weakness)
"My opinions and principles are subjects of just criticism. I put myself before the public voluntarily."
- Victoria Woodhull
(Related: Criticism, Opinions, Principles, Public)
"I now announce myself as candidate for the Presidency. I anticipate criticism; but however unfavorable I trust that my sincerity will not be called into question."
- Victoria Woodhull
(Related: Trust, Criticism, Now, Presidency, Question, Sincerity, Will)
"You have to laugh, you have to be able to take criticism."
- Tina Yothers
(Related: Criticism)