100+ Criticism Quotes | InspiringQuotes.us

source: Arthur Guiterman (1924). “A Poet's Proverbs: Being Mirthful, Sober, and Fanciful Epigrams on the Universe, with Certain Old Irish Proverbs, All in Rhymed Complets”, New York, E.P. Dutton [1924]

topic: Leadership, Men, Criticism

Criticism is properly the rod of divination: a hazel switch for the discovery of buried treasure, not a birch twig for the castigation of offenders.

- Arthur Symons

source: Arthur Symons (1906). “An Introduction to the Study of Browning”

topic: Discovery, Criticism, Treasure, Buried Treasure

When people (talk trash) about you, you have to keep it moving, keep the records hot and keep your head up.

- Ashanti

topic: Moving, People, Criticism, Heads Up, Keep It Moving

If criticism has made such discoveries as to necessitate the abandonment of the doctrine of plenary inspiration, it is not enough to say that we are compelled to abandon only a "particular theory of inspiration..." We must go on to say that that "particular theory of inspiration" is the theory of the apostles and of the Lord, and that in abandoning it we are abandoning them.

- B. B. Warfield

topic: Inspiration, Discovery, Criticism, Compelled

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

topic: Mean, Appreciate, Criticism

Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle...

- Balthus

topic: Struggle, Self, Criticism

The simplest kind of guidance (critique) comes every day, and many times a day in the form of discomfort.

- Barbara Brennan

topic: Criticism, Kind, Guidance

Tomorrow is another day, we rather hope it will be better but better it won't be unless self-foibles are examined.

- Barbara Oakley

source: Barbara Oakley (2010). “Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfri end”, p.140, Prometheus Books

topic: Self, Criticism, Another Day, Foibles, Tomorrow Is Another Day

Unkind criticism is never part of a meaningful critique of you. Its purpose is not to teach or to help, its purpose is to punish.

- Barbara Sher

topic: Meaningful, Criticism, Purpose

You are never really prepared for criticism.

- Barry Gibb

topic: Criticism, Prepared

I'm easy to work with, not a pushover, but I respond to criticism and find it inspiring.

- Ben Elton

topic: Inspiring, Criticism, Easy, Pushovers

Criticism can never instruct or benefit you. Its chief effect is that of a telegram with dubious news. Praise leaves no glow behind, for it is a writer's habit to remember nothing good of himself. I have usually forgotten those who have admired my work, and seldom anyone who disliked it. Obviously, this is because praise is never enough and censure always too much.

- Ben Hecht

source: Ben Hecht (1954). “A child of the century”, Signet

topic: Criticism, Benefits, Too Much, Telegrams

Tis not the wholesome sharp mortality, Or modest anger of a satiric spirit, That hurts or wounds the body of a state, But the sinister application Of the malicious, ignorant, and base Interpreter; who will distort and strain The general scope and purpose of an author To his particular and private spleen.

- Ben Jonson

topic: Hurt, Ignorant, Criticism, Spleen, Sinister

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

- Benjamin Disraeli

topic: Positive Thinking, Criticism, Politics, Funny Exam

Of all unfortunate men one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.

- Benjamin Disraeli

topic: Men, Criticism, Authorship

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

- Benjamin Franklin

topic: Criticism, Would Be, Littles, Printing Press, Banned Books

A work of morality, politics, criticism will be more elegant, other things being equal, if it is shaped by the hand of geometry.

- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

topic: Hands, Criticism, Morality

Islam and Islamic values now have a level of immunity from comment and criticism in the Western world that Christianity has lost and Judaism has never had.

- Bernard Lewis

topic: Islamic, Criticism, World

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Atheist, People, Criticism, Change Is Good

Becoming critical in the face of criticism, only inspires more criticism.

- Bill Crawford

topic: Inspire, Criticism, Faces

If you don't live by the praise of men you won't die by their criticism.

- Bill Johnson

topic: Men, Criticism, Praise

The only players I hurt with my words are the ones who have an inflated opinion of their ability.

- Bill Parcells

topic: Hurt, Player, Criticism

People thrive on positive reinforcement. They can take only a certain amount of criticism and you may lose them altogether if you criticize them in a personal way... you can make a point without being personal. Don't insult or belittle your people. Instead of getting more out of them you will get less

- Bill Walsh

topic: People, Coaching, Criticism, Reinforcement, Positive Reinforcement

The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy.

- Bjork

topic: Country, People, Criticism, Unforgiving

People call you this or that. But I can't respond because then it seems like I'm defensive, you know, what does it matter, really?

- Bob Dylan

topic: People, Criticism, Doe, Does It Matter

Don't criticize what you can't understand.

- Bob Dylan

topic: Education, Song, Criticism

Love has the kind of power criticism only wishes it had.

- Bob Goff

topic: Criticism, Wish, Kind

I did not mind the public criticism. That sort of thing has not changed any program I thought was good.

- Branch Rickey

topic: Mind, Criticism, Program

Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.

- Brendan Behan

source: "ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER; Breathing Rarefied Air", www.nytimes.com. May 6, 1990.

topic: Funny, Editors, Criticism, Eunuchs, Harem

Graham Greene, as I understand it, was quite outspoken in his criticism of American foreign policy

- Brendan Fraser

topic: Criticism, Outspoken, Foreign Policy, American Foreign Policy

Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism.

- Brené Brown

topic: Criticism, Stories

If your are ever called upon to chasten a person, never chasten beyond the balm you have within you to bind up.

- Brigham Young

topic: Criticism, Persons

There should be a dash of the amateur in criticism. For the amateur is a man of enthusiasm who has not settled down and is not habit bound.

- Brooks Atkinson

source: Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

topic: Men, Criticism, Down And

If you are going to do anything, you must expect criticism. But it's better to be a doer than a critic. The doer moves; the critic stands still, and is passed by.

- Bruce Barton

topic: Moving, Teaching, Criticism

Therefore, criticism has to direct itself against itself, and against the mysterious Substance in which it has up to now hid itself. In this way criticism must resolve things such that the development of this Substance drives itself forward to the Universality and Certainty of the Idea of its actual existence, the Eternal Self-consciousness.

- Bruno Bauer

topic: Self, Ideas, Criticism, Self Consciousness

The criticism is, once I get something flying, I lose interest in it.

- Burt Rutan

topic: Flying, Criticism, Interest

If we judge ourselves only by our aspirations and everyone else only their conduct we shall soon reach a very false conclusion.

- Calvin Coolidge

topic: Inspirational, Judging, Criticism

Criticism at its best is re-creative, not spirit-killing.

- Camille Paglia

topic: Creative, Criticism, Spirit

I despise the phony, fancy-pants rhetoric of professors aping jargon-filled European locutions - which have blighted academic film criticism for over 30 years.

- Camille Paglia

topic: Years, Criticism, Fancy, Film 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

source: "Haydn, A Documentary Study". Book by Chandler Robbins Landon (p. 88), 1981.

topic: Criticism, Principles, Praise, Criticism And Praise

There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.

- Carl Sagan

topic: Self, Dumb, Criticism, Dumb Questions

Valid criticism does you a favor.

- Carl Sagan

topic: Criticism, Doe, Favors

Criticism exists only to recognize the truth, not to act as judge.

- Carl von Clausewitz

topic: Judging, Criticism

I discovered very quickly that criticism is a form of optimism, and that when you are silent about the shortcomings of your society, you're very pessimistic about that society. And it's only when you speak truthfully about it that you show your faith in that society.

- Carlos Fuentes

source: "A Conversation With Author Carlos Fuentes". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. 1987.

topic: Optimistic, Optimism, Criticism

When your results are good, you are obviously going to have a lot of press. And when you start to falter a little bit, you are going to have some criticism, and there is nothing abnormal in that.

- Carlos Ghosn

topic: Criticism, Abnormal, Littles

For some reason if we hear 100 praises and one criticism, we focus on that one hurtful thing.

- Carmen Electra

topic: Focus, Hurtful, Criticism, Hurtful Things

You know criticism when you get into this business. You accept the bad with the good, the tabloids and the positive side of it.

- Carmen Electra

topic: Criticism, Tabloids, Sides

A critic is a necessary evil, and criticism is an evil necessity.

- Carolyn Wells

topic: Evil, Criticism, Necessary Evil

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

topic: Blue, Circles, Criticism

Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.

- Charles Babbage

source: Charles Babbage (1830). “Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes”, p.9

topic: Criticism, Would Be, Should

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

topic: Thinking, Criticism, May

Who shall dispute what the Reviewers say? Their word's sufficient; and to ask a reason, In such a state as theirs, is downright treason.

- Charles Churchill

topic: Criticism, Reason, Disputes, Sufficient

A servile race Who, in mere want of fault, all merit place; Who blind obedience pay to ancient schools, Bigots to Greece, and slaves to musty rules.

- Charles Churchill

topic: School, Race, Criticism, Blind Obedience

In my wide association in life, meeting with many and great men in various parts of the world, I have yet to find the man, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.

- Charles M. Schwab

topic: Men, Effort, Criticism

The art critics on some of Britain's newspapers could as easily have been assigned gardening or travel, and been cheerfully employed for life.

- Charles Saatchi

topic: Art, Criticism, Gardening, Art Critic

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

source: Charley Pride, Jim Henderson (1994). “Pride: the Charley Pride story”, William Morrow & Co

topic: Country, Judgement, Criticism, Divisiveness

Creationists reject Darwin's theory of evolution on the grounds that it is just a theory. This is a valid criticism: evolution is indeed merely a theory, albeit one with ten billion times more credence than the theory of creationism - although, to be fair, the theory of creationism is more than just a theory. It's also a fairy story. And children love fairy stories, which is presumably why so many creationists are keen to have their whimsical gibberish taught in schools.

- Charlie Brooker

topic: Children, School, Criticism, Children Love, Creationism

Treat praise like criticism: refuse to accept either.

- Chris Brogan

topic: Criticism, Praise, Accepting

In any field, it's a plus if you view criticism as potentially helpful advice rather than as a personal attack.

- Chris Hadfield

source: Chris Hadfield (2013). “An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth”, p.53, Pan Macmillan

topic: Views, Advice, Criticism, Personal Attacks

Sometimes we have criticism that is very constructive.

- Chris Martin

topic: Criticism, Sometimes, Constructive

For me, there is only one means of ensuring that I do not lose respect for myself: constant criticism.

- Christian Morgenstern

topic: Mean, Criticism, Constant, Constant Criticism

The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may safely be left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it.

- Christian Nestell Bovee

topic: Imperfection, Criticism, Attention

It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one.

- Chuck Palahniuk

topic: Creativity, Criticism, Easy

The best defense against a powerful and positive dynamic ideology is neither verbal attack nor criticism, which are useful, but to set up an equally powerful and dynamic ideology against it.

- Clare Boothe Luce

topic: Powerful, Criticism, Defense

Harsh counsels have no effect; they are like hammers which are always repulsed by the anvil.

- Claude Adrien Helvetius

topic: Criticism, Hammers, Anvils

I think that a society cannot live without a certain number of irrational beliefs. They are protected from criticism and analysis because they are irrational.

- Claude Levi-Strauss

topic: Thinking, Numbers, Criticism, Irrational Beliefs

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

topic: Criticism, Research, Persuasive, Anthropology, Literary Criticism

It is much more valuable to look for the strength in others. You can gain nothing by criticizing their imperfections.

- Daisaku Ikeda

topic: Imperfection, Criticism, Gains, Criticism Of Others, Criticizing Others

Abilities wither under criticism; they blossom under encouragement.

- Dale Carnegie

source: Dale Carnegie (2010). “How To Win Friends and Influence People”, p.220, Simon and Schuster

topic: Encouragement, Criticism, Ability

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes them strive to justify themselves. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts their sense of importance, and arouses resentment.

- Dale Carnegie

topic: Hurt, Pride, Criticism, Self Criticism

Criticism of others is futile and if you indulge in it often you should be warned that it can be fatal to your career.

- Dale Carnegie

topic: Motivational, Careers, Criticism, Indulge, Criticism Of Others

It's wrong to criticize leaders of the church, even if the criticism is true.

- Dallin H. Oaks

topic: Leader, Criticism, Church

I'll never be immune to criticism, and that's okay, and I'm very comfortable with that.

- Damon Lindelof

topic: Criticism, Okay

I have observed in my 30 years in Washington that when a President initiates a major policy speech on a controversial issue while Congress is in recess, it usually is because what he is advocating is indefensible and that he is seeking to minimize criticism.

- Dana Rohrabacher

topic: Years, Issues, Criticism, Initiate, Recess

At bottom, textual criticism for virtually all other ancient literature relies on creative conjectures, or imaginative guesses, at reconstructing the wording of the original. Not so with the New Testament.

- Daniel B. Wallace

topic: Creative, Criticism, Literature, Wording, Reconstructing

People are drastically overconfident about their judgments of others.

- Daniel Gilbert

topic: People, Criticism, Judgment, Judgment Of Others, Overconfident

The test of democracy is freedom of criticism.

- David Ben-Gurion

topic: Democracy, Criticism, Feminism

Reciprocal accountability, or criticism [is] the only known antidote to error.

- David Brin

topic: Errors, Accountability, Criticism

Alas, criticism has always been what human beings, especially leaders, most hate to hear.

- David Brin

topic: Hate, Leader, Criticism

The truth is that the more responsible the media outlet, the more responsive they are to constructive criticism.

- David Brock

topic: Media, Criticism, Truth Is, Constructive Criticism

Most architects work in studios largely divorced from academia, as if ideas, criticism and historical research were irrelevant.

- David Chipperfield

topic: Ideas, Historical, Criticism

The critics love to get out their knives and dine on Coverdale. But the worse the criticism gets, the more successful I become.

- David Coverdale

topic: Successful, Knives, Criticism, Dine

The only thing I'm allergic to is criticism.

- David Lee Roth

topic: Criticism, Allergic

There is an air of last things, a brooding sense of impending annihilation, about so much deconstructive activity, in so many of its guises; it is not merely postmodernist but preapocalyptic.

- David Lehman

source: David Lehman (1992). “Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man”, Poseidon Pr

topic: Air, Criticism, Lasts, Brooding, Guise

Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her.

- David Lehman

source: David Lehman (2015). “The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry, 1988-2014”, p.162, University of Pittsburgh Press

topic: Mean, Artist, Criticism, Spiteful

Wallace's sales agent, back in London, heard mutterings from some naturalists that young Mr. Wallace ought to quit theorizing and stick to gathering facts. Besides expressing their condescension toward him in particular, that criticism also reflected a common attitude that fact-gathering, not theory, was the proper business of all naturalists.

- David Quammen

source: David Quammen (1996). “The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions”, Vintage

topic: Attitude, Criticism, Gathering, Muttering, Condescension

You're always going to face criticism, you're always going to face challenges, but those things are there to make you stronger and more committed.

- David Robinson

topic: Basketball, Challenges, Criticism, Makes You Stronger, Stronger Than Before

I would have assumed you understood, despite our vague suggestions otherwise, we do not welcome constructive criticism.

- David Thorne

source: David Thorne (2011). “The Internet is a Playground: Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius”, p.135, Penguin

topic: Criticism, Suggestions, Welcome, Constructive Criticism

Being a critic is a terrific method for killing your love of art.

- David Toop

topic: Art, Criticism, Killing

I can't see why anyone would want to be in politics because you get so much criticism.

- David Walliams

topic: Criticism, Want

any criticism heard secondhand sounds worse than it would face to face. Words spoken out of our presence strike us as more powerful, just as people we know only by reputation seem larger than life.

- Deborah Tannen

topic: Powerful, People, Criticism

In an ongoing relationship, each current criticism packs the punches of all the others that have gone before.

- Deborah Tannen

topic: Criticism, Gone, Ongoing

The price of success is to bear the criticism of envy.

- Denis Waitley

topic: Envy, Criticism, Bears, Price Of Success

A film is just like a muffin. You make it. You put it on the table. One person might say, Oh, I don't like it. One might say it's the best muffin ever made. One might say it's an awful muffin. It's hard for me to say. It's for me to make the muffin.

- Denzel Washington

topic: Criticism, Tables, Might

Much more prevalent than physical fear is the fear of criticism, rejection, and verbal opposition.

- Derek A. Cuthbert

topic: Rejection, Criticism

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

topic: Hurt, Moving, Criticism, You Hurt Me

Someone said to me... 'A criticism is just a really bad way of making a request. So why don't you just make the request? Why don't you just say, Could we work out this thing that makes me feel this way?'

- Diane Sawyer

source: "How Can I Help My 10-Year-Old Be More Independent?" by Susan Stiffelman, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 2, 2013.

topic: Work Out, Criticism, Way

To love without criticism is to be betrayed.

- Djuna Barnes

topic: Criticism, Betrayed

I am not a critic; to me criticism is so often nothing more than the eye garrulously denouncing the shape of the peephole that gives access to hidden treasure.

- Djuna Barnes

topic: Eye, Giving, Criticism, Peepholes, Hidden Treasure

I'm not afraid of criticism or what somebody may think.

- Don Mattingly

topic: Thinking, Criticism, May

Shout praise and whisper criticism.

- Don Meyer

topic: Basketball, Coaching, Criticism, Famous Basketball, Motivational Basketball

Find the grain of truth in criticism-chew it and swallow it.

- Don Sutton

topic: Adversity, Criticism, Grain

I ask myself, 'Do you want to sit on the sidelines of life or do you want to be on the field?' I suppose all those years of building thicker skin has made it easy to endure criticism.

- Don Watson

topic: Years, Criticism, Skins

Self-criticism sessions were held, but these produced more criticism than could usefully be absorbed or accomodated.

- Donald Barthelme

topic: Self, Criticism, Self Criticism, Session

Back in the 1930s, Carl Jung, the eminent thinker and psychologist, put it this way: Criticism has 'the power to do good when there is something that must be destroyed, dissolved or reduced, but [it is] capable only of harm when there is something to be built.

- Donald O. Clifton

source: Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton (2001). “Now, Discover Your Strengths”, p.124, Simon and Schuster

topic: Criticism, Way, Psychologist, Jung

Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive.

- Donald Rumsfeld

topic: Criticism, May, Publicity

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

topic: Criticism, Would Be, Easy

We don't criticize. Criticism is an enemy. You've got to make loving, positive suggestions.

- Dorothy Sarnoff

topic: Enemy, Criticism, Suggestions

A good review from the critics is just another stay of execution.

- Dustin Hoffman

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Criticism, Execution, Reviews

Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think, creation's.

- E. M. Forster

topic: Thinking, Criticism, Literature, Think Before You Speak

Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wishes to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time.

- E. M. Forster

topic: Book, Long, Criticism, Long Book

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

topic: Criticism, Purpose, Literature

After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.

- Edith Wharton

topic: Criticism, Glitter, Weak, Weak Points, Criticism Of Others

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

source: Edmund Husserl, Peter McCormick, Frederick Elliston (1981). “Husserl, shorter works”, Univ of Notre Dame Pr

topic: Offering, Understanding, Criticism, Understanding Things

There are floods of praise coming in as well as criticism.

- Edmund Morris

source: "A chat about the book 'Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan'". CNN Chat Room, www.cnn.com. October 5, 1999.

topic: Criticism, Praise, Flood

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

- Edward Dahlberg

topic: People, Imagination, Criticism

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

- Edward Dahlberg

topic: Men, Silence, Criticism, Homage, Cunning Man

If there's criticism of my work that's legitimate. I'm ready to hear of it.

- Edward Klein

topic: Criticism, Ready

We can not fight for our rights and our history as well as future until we are armed with weapons of criticism and dedicated consciousness.

- Edward Said

source: Edward W. Said (2007). “The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After”, p.233, Vintage

topic: Fighting, Rights, Criticism

The purity of the critical ermine, like that of the judicial, is often soiled by contact with politics.

- Edwin Percy Whipple

topic: Criticism, Purity, Contact

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.

- Elbert Hubbard

topic: Lying, Greatness, Criticism

While the censorious man is most severe in judging others, he is invariably the most ready to repel any animadversions made upon himself.

- Elias Lyman Magoon

source: "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 357), 1895.

topic: Men, Judging, Criticism, Self Criticism

It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever.

- Eliezer Yudkowsky

topic: Art, Philosophy, Criticism, Clauses, Counterarguments

Litmus test: If you can't describe Ricardo 's Law of Comparative Advantage and explain why people find it counterintuitive, you don't know enough about economics to direct any criticism or praise at " capitalism " because you don't know what other people are referring to when they use that word .

- Eliezer Yudkowsky

source: Comment as Eliezer Yudkowsky @yudkowsky, www.facebook.com. June 10, 2012.

topic: Law, People, Criticism, Comparative Advantage

The first rule of life is to reveal nothing, to be exceptionally cautious in what you say, in whatever company you may find yourself. If you have a secret, you have only to whisper it to your dearest friend with the strictest injunction that it will go no further, and within half a day the story is all over town, and when you do make what would seem to be a perfectly sensible remark, you will find it reported in the most grotesque form, thus incurring no end of criticism to rebound upon you.

- Elizabeth Aston

topic: Secret, Finding Yourself, Criticism, Incurring, Dearest Friend

Foolishness and criticism are so apt, do so naturally go together!

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

topic: Criticism, Together, Foolishness

The most striking fault in work by young or beginning novelists, submitted for criticism, is irrelevance--due either to infatuation or indecision. To direct such an author's attention to the imperative of relevance is certainly the most useful--and possibly the only--help that can be given.

- Elizabeth Bowen

topic: Irrelevance, Criticism, Novelists, Relevance

Conceit is an insuperable obstacle to all progress. On the other hand, it is of little use to take criticism in a slavish spirit and to act on it without understanding it.

- Ellen Terry

topic: Hands, Understanding, Criticism

the most censorious are generally the least judicious; who, having nothing to recommend themselves, will be finding fault with others. No man envies the merit of another, that has any of his own.

- Ellin Devis

source: Ellin Devis (1801). “The Accidence: Or First Rudiments of English Grammar. Designed for the Use of Young Ladies”, p.131

topic: Men, Envy, Criticism

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

- Emmet Fox

topic: Self, Criticism, Indirect, Constructive Criticism

Fox News is nothing if not impressive. No matter how harsh the criticism it endures, the network somehow always manages to prove itself even worse than we had previously imagined.

- Eric Alterman

source: "Think Again: Jon Stewart and Chris Wallace: Network on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" by Eric Alterman, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 27, 2011.

topic: Criticism, News, Matter

In a world not made for women, criticism and ridicule follow us all the days of our lives. Usually they are indications that we are doing something right.

- Erica Jong

topic: Criticism, World, Made

The thought of judgment, criticism and condemnation must, in time, operate against the one who sets it into motion.

- Ernest Holmes

topic: Criticism, Judgment, Condemnation

To take an unequivocal stand, it seems to me, is of greater heuristic value and far more likely to stimulate constructive criticism than to evade the issue.

- Ernst Mayr

topic: Issues, Criticism, Heuristics, Unequivocal, Constructive Criticism

Criticism is like many other things, it drags along after what has already been said and doesn't get out of its rut.

- Eugene Delacroix

topic: Criticism, Ruts, Drag

I have criticisms of Ronald Reagan, but he lives in another universe from the kind of political theater that is represented by people, like Sarah Palin, who aren't really public servants.

- Eugene Jarecki

source: "Exclusive: A Conversation With Eugene Jarecki, Director of Reagan Doc". Interview with Tommy Christopher, www.mediaite.com. February 7, 2011.

topic: People, Political, Criticism, Public Servants

When it is about technology, there is this tendency to just reject all criticism as being anti-technological and anti-modern. I think this is very unhealthy.

- Evgeny Morozov

topic: Technology, Thinking, Criticism

Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.

- Ezra Pound

topic: Men, Criticism, Attention

The literary wiseacres prognosticate in many languages, as they have throughout so many centuries, setting the stage for new hautmonde in letters and making up the public's mind.

- Fannie Hurst

topic: Mind, Criticism, Language, Literary Criticism

American teens have the worst of all worlds ... Our children are bombarded and confronted with sexual messages, sexual exploitation, and all manner of sexual criticism. But our society is by and large sexually illiterate.

- Faye Wattleton