Criticism Quotes

Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves. (Emil Cioran)
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. View quote
Elbert Hubbard
I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses. View quote
Johannes Kepler
I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise. View quote
Noël Coward
The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism. View quote
Wole Soyinka
People who ask for your criticism want only praise. View quote
W. Somerset Maugham
Anyone who tries to improve the lives of animals invariably comes in for criticism from those who believe such efforts are misplaced in a world of suffering humanity. View quote
Jane Goodall
There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife. View quote
Stephen Spender
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. View quote
Fredrik Bajer
Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea. View quote
John Updike
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)
Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity. View quote
Joseph Addison
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! View quote
Laurence Sterne
The use of criticism, in periodical writing, is to sift, not to stamp a work. View quote
Margaret Fuller
We live on the circumference of a hollow circle. We draw the circumference, like spiders, out of ourselves: it is all criticism of criticism. View quote
Laura Riding
The worst censors are those prohibiting criticism of the theory of evolution in the classroom. View quote
Phyllis Schlafly
Literary criticism has about it neither rigour nor proof. Where it is honest, it is passionate, private experience seeking to persuade. View quote
George Steiner
Political criticism is our enemies' best friend. View quote
Bernard Kerik
Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths. View quote
Karl Popper
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. View quote
Zhu Rongji
Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent. View quote
Vivienne Westwood
Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire. View quote
Henry Miller
I am bound by my own definition of criticism a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world. View quote
Matthew Arnold
Asking a writer what he thinks about criticism is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs. View quote
John Osborne