Quotes About Criticism

I don't have a very high opinion, actually, of the world of criticism - or the practice of criticism. I think I admire art criticism, criticism of painting and sculpture, far more than I do that of say films and books, literary or film criticism. But I don't much like the practice. I think there are an awful lot of bad people in it.

I appreciate good criticism and I think it's really important. I don't like it when it's consumer advocacy, like how you should spend your $60. Great criticism is a kind of literature. I've written some criticism, and I really enjoy it because I think it's important for people to know that theatre is vital. Criticism is really unevenly distributed in this town. Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It's killing new plays, demolishing one after another.

Destructive criticism is the biggest single enemy of human potential. It is worse than cancer or heart disease. While those diseases can ultimately lead to the deterioration and death of an individual, destructive criticism kills the soul of the person but leaves the body walking around.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

Criticism is part of being in the marketplace. If you can't take a bit of criticism, you shouldn't bother publishing a book.

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.

Criticism can bother you, but you should be more bothered if there’s no criticism. That means you’re too safe

There must be courage; there must be no awe. There must be criticism, for humor, to my mind, is encapsulated in criticism. There must be a disciplined eye and a wild mind...There must be a magnificent disregard of your reader, for if he cannot follow you, there is nothing you can do about it.

I've always been terribly uninterested in criticism. And one of the reasons, I just thought recently, is that you know there are various schools of criticism that will compete, and one will supercede the other.

I'm not angry. As an athlete ... you should be open to criticism, and you're allowed to be criticized, because not everybody has the same opinion, not everybody likes the same players. The rankings are quite volatile: Today you're 'great,' tomorrow you're 'not,' but then you're 'great' again. It makes for great stories. Now, I always look at the long term and by doing that, obviously, I can stay calm through the storm.

The anxiety around such work [vulnerably written ethnographies] is that it will prove to be beyond criticism, that it will be undiscussable.

People who quoted the Scriptures in criticism of others were terrible bores and usually they misapplied the text. One could prove anything against anyone from the Bible.

The whole point of free expression is not to make ideas exempt from criticism but to expose them to it.

One bad review doesn't ruin my day because I realize what a badge of honor it is to get a bit of criticism at all.

I like criticism, but it must be my way.

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.

In the Communist Party, we address problems very openly and sometimes very vocally, and we point out abuses. This is a good thing. We exercise self-criticism once a year. Although 80 percent of the members of the National Assembly are also members of the Communist Party, this does not prevent them from sharply criticizing the administrative and governmental system.

I think criticism of good work should stop somewhere.

It is fashionable in some academic circles to exercise scholarly criticism of the Bible. In so doing, scholars place themselves above the Bible and seek to correct it. If indeed the Bible is the Word of God, nothing could be more arrogant. It is God who corrects us; we don’t correct Him. We do not stand over God but under Him.

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.

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.

Sometimes discipline, which means "to teach," is confused with criticism.

The world will not know liberty until all that is religious and political is transformed into something simple and human and made susceptible to criticism and denial.

I think I have always sort of cultivated a flowery writing style. I've always sort of over - written in every genre that I've attempted. I went to college and took a couple of writing classes and I remember my teachers were always incredibly encouraging. But it was inevitable to get the criticism: "Take it down a notch!" But the nice thing about screenwriting is that you don't really have to.

I am the object of criticism around the world. But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track.

There is no business model in the modern media that promotes comity. If we worried too much about criticism, we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

Didn't Lionel Richie just make a country album? No one is giving him a hard time... and God bless him - I love Lionel and should be able to do what he wants to do, like Madonna should, too. Both are having success and I applaud them. If you don't like it, don't buy it. The ageism criticism is getting old.

There's a myth among amateurs, optimists and fools that beyond a certain level of achievement, famous artists retire to some kind of Elysium where criticism no longer wounds and work materializes without their effort.

There's always criticism in any process and I think that's a healthy thing.

Opening things up not closing them off is my job. I'm doing that for my reader. You know, Bob Gottlieb always says, "Criticism is a service industry." I take that very seriously. I do the research so I can tell you interesting things. It's not condescending, it's educational.

I will accept comments and criticism about change.

A creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.

I believe in clear-cut positions. I think that the most arrogant position is this apparent, multidisciplinary modesty of "what I am saying now is not unconditional, it is just a hypothesis," and so on. It really is a most arrogant position. I think that the only way to be honest and expose yourself to criticism is to state clearly and dogmatically where you are. You must take the risk and have a position.

Criticism often takes from the tree caterpillars and blossoms together.

A great deal of contemporary criticism reads to me like a man saying, 'Of course I do not like green cheese. I am very fond of brown sherry.

Do you really believe in what you said or wrote – in the thing that’s bringing criticism? And if I do believe it, I can withstand anything.

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.

Why do we wrap things? Usually to protect them. The more fragile they are, the more important the wrapping. Your dream is prey to many perils. It may shatter under the blows of criticism, evaporate with competition's heat, sink to the bottomless depths of others' indifference. Tend to your dream. Protect it as you would a fallen nestling. Until the day when it—and you—will fly.

If you really look at my lyrics, nobody's exempt. Nobody's exempt from observation, criticism or what I think is correction.

I don't let negative criticism, for the most part, bother me.

It is often said that the progression from simple to complex runs counter to the normal statistics of chance that are formalized in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Strictly speaking, we could avoid this criticism simply by insisting that the Second Law does not apply to living systems in the environment in which we find them. For the Second Law applies only when there is no overall flow of energy into or out of a system, whereas all living systems are sustained by a net inflow of energy.

We are not going to move this world by criticism of it nor conformity to it, but by the combustion within it of lives ignited by the Spirit of God.

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.

We unified, we looked past and we're impervious to the constant criticism of naysayer.

Suicide is about life, being in fact the sincerest form of criticism life gets.

A system such as classical mechanics may be 'scientific' to any degree you like; but those who uphold it dogmatically - believing, perhaps, that it is their business to defend such a successful system against criticism as long as it is not conclusively disproved - are adopting the very reverse of that critical attitude which in my view is the proper one for the scientist.

Criticism can be wonderful, especially in making connections in an interpretive way. But by applying theories randomly, it's an interesting exercise, but I don't think it illuminates the literature.

When you are free from self-doubt, you fail better. You accept criticism and listen.