Quotes About Criticism

All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.

Critics in New York are made by their dislikes, not by their enthusiasms.

Once, when a religionist denounced me in unmeasured terms, I sent him a card saying, "I am sure you believe that I will go to hell when I die, and that once there I will suffer all the pains and tortures the sadistic ingenuity of your deity can devise and that this torture will continue forever. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to call me bad names in addition?"

The biographical interest of this now little-known essay lies in the fact that in it he expounded broadly a view of the organization and the discipline of the party identical with that which was later to become the hall-mark of Bolshevism, and which he himself then met with acute and venomous criticism.28 The

If you want to go public with your opinions, then someone is going to judge you a moron. And there is always a risk that you may be.

There are more bad musicians than there is bad music.

the thinker's natural process is inappropriate when used in personal relations with feeling types, because it includes a readiness to criticize. Criticism is of great value when thinkers apply it to their own conduct or conclusions, but it has a destructive effect upon feeling types, who need a harmonious climate.

they [thinkers] can remember how feeling types respond to sympathy and appreciation; a little of either will greatly tone down a necessary criticism, but the thinker must express the sympathy or appreciation first.

Noi chiamiamo grandi storici solo quelli che non soltanto hanno il pieno controllo della documentazione fattuale ottenuta mediante l'impiego dei migliori metodi critici disponibili, ma possiedono altresì la profonda penetrazione immaginativa che caratterizza i romanzieri di talento. Dopo tutto - lo ricordava molto tempo fa lo storico inglese G.M. Trevelyan - Clio era una musa.

Of course, like all over-simple classifications of this type, the dichotomy becomes, if pressed, artificial, scholastic and ultimately absurd. But if it is not an aid to serious criticism, neither should it be rejected as being merely superficial or frivolous: like all distinctions which embody any degree of truth, it offers a point of view from which to look and compare, a starting-point for genuine investigation.

It is usually considered good practice to examine a thing for one's self before echoing the vulgar ridicule of it. But in connection with the Bible, such scholarly restraints are somehow regarded as out of place.

According to all the four Gospels, and according to all the supposed sources which modern criticism has tried to detect back of the four Gospels, Jesus put himself into his gospel; the gospel of Jesus was also a gospel about Jesus; the gospel that he preached was also a gospel that offered him as Savior. He did not say merely: "Have faith in God like the faith that I have in God," but he said: "Have faith in me.

Modern liberalism may be criticized (1) on the ground that it is un-Christian and (2) on the ground that it is unscientific. We shall concern ourselves here chiefly with the former line of criticism; we shall be interested in showing that despite the liberal use of traditional phraseology modern liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity but belongs in a totally different class of religions.

Criticized for including humor in a sermon, Charles Spurgeon, eye twinkling, said: "If only you knew how much I hold back, you would commend me." Later

Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.

Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works...

We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to enquire. We know that the wages of secrecy are corruption. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.

Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.

Lack of wisdom does not make a fool. A fool, in the truest sense, is the man who regards his own misfortunes or those of others as a source of doubt or criticism of the infinite mercy of the Gohonzon.-Josei Toda

Well said the owner of the house she has a most idiotick run.

Every leader-writer who thunders 'Galileo' at us assumes that we know even less about Galileo than he does.

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.

People who shop at Barnes and Noble voted Ulysses the best novel of the last century, and who's to tell them different? There was a point when I would have liked to, but apparently that's just because I'm a bitch.

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?