Quotes About Criticism

Ma eccola lì, la gente sempre pronta a disapprovare, seduta al ristorante a sgranocchiare ossicini.

He wrote short and he wrote often, which tended to obscure the fact that he wrote well. Unless it leads to obscurity, brevity is rarely praised (or employed) in the journals of, ah, serious literary criticism, and frequency is often equated with frivolity.

for the first time in a popular novel I was reading about wrongdoing by the then-sacred institution, the FBI. I was reading open criticism and accusation of J. Edgar Hoover himself. I was reading it not from the typewriter of a young radical but from that of an old novelist.

It is my conceit to expose myself to reproach only from others, never from myself.

We count negative things when we talk about the things we don't have. We count negative things when we criticize or find fault with other people, when we complain about traffic, waiting in lines, delays, the government, not enough money, or the weather. When we count negative things they increase too, but on top of that, with every negative thing we count, we cancel out blessings that were on their way.

What nonsense! What arrogance! What blind, ignorant balderdash!

Scott calls Bois-Guilbert 'an unprincipled voluptuary,' which is hard to improve on.

Of course, that made the papers, too. Well, what of it? ... He didn't say the guy's name! ... Gaghhd! Come on! What had the guy ever done—that hadn't been handed to him? ... Dole never could figure what they saw in George Bush.

Sometimes we see problems in our church. Such occasions are not opportunities to criticize or to leave, but to let Christ use our lives to be a part of His solution. If you are presently in a church that is suffering difficulties, could it be that Christ added you to your congregation for such a time as this?

Tal como observó Oscar Wilde: «Solamente hay una cosa en el mundo peor que hablen de ti, y es que no hablen de ti».

An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance.

When we criticize another person, it says nothing about that person; it merely says something about our own need to be critical.

If, however, you take a moment to observe how you actually feel immediately after you criticise someone, you'll notice that you will feel a little deflated and ashamed, almost like you're the one who has been attacked. The reason this is true is that when we criticise, it's a statement to the world and to ourselves, "I have a need to be critical." This isn't something we are usually proud to admit.

Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918)

They may already know too much about their mother and father--nothing being more factual than divorce, where so much has to be explained and worked through intelligently (though they have tried to stay equable). I've noticed this is often the time when children begin calling their parents by their first names, becoming little ironists after their parents' faults. What could be lonelier for a parent than to be criticized by his child on a first-name basis?

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.

Every invention, every innovation in the history of the world, has been laughed at. Columbus was renounced as a faker; Morse was called a crank; Franklin a fool; Charles Darwin ridiculed for years. It seems to be the fate of every man or woman who discovers a new fact, to be made the subject of attacks of the most violent nature, without rhyme or reason.

The Shambaughs came, bringing Letty. She simpered up to me. Her eyes summed up the lace tippets on my Princess dress and the wide taffeta sash that was cutting me in half. Well, Blossom, just look at you! she said in her mother's own grown-up voice. I have always said a good dress will cover up any flaw. Then you had better get one like it, I replied.

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.

Just do it better yourself and don't waste any time criticizing others or the past! This, in fact, purifies your own commitment and motivation.

for Action and Contemplation puts it this way: "The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better." I

If our postmodern world seems highly subject to cynicism, skepticism, and what it does not believe in, if we now live in a post-truth America, then we "believers" must take at least partial responsibility for aiming our culture in this sad direction. The best criticism of the bad is still the practice of the better.

Most people, he concluded, were selfish, greedy, unprincipled, venal, utterly irredeemable shit-eaters, but he'd also observed that these same people were highly sensitive to criticism.

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 so much love for her.