Quotes About Criticism

Accept criticism. If you do not offer your work for criticism and accept that criticism, meaning give it serious thought and attention, then you will never improve.

For the critic, criticism is a form of natural self-expression, as poetry is to the poet. So, for a critic, criticism is a true thing. Criticism isn’t written for poets, it’s written for other readers. One hopes it is true for other readers if it’s true for oneself.

In the spiritual domain, criticism is love turned sour... If criticism becomes a habit, it will destroy the moral energy of the life and paralyze the spiritual force... Whenever you are in a critical temper, it is impossible to enter into communion with God. Criticism makes you hard and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person. It is impossible to develop the characteristics of a saint and maintain a critical attitude.

Someone has said that even criticism is better than silence. I don't agree to this. Criticism can be very harmful unless it comes from a master; and in spite of the fact that we have hundreds of critics these days, it is one of the most difficult of professions.

I also encourage my students to read literary criticism that is deeply personal yet formally inventive and intellectually expansive... books that offer unorthodox ways of doing double duty as literary criticism and as love letters to the power of literature per se.

Pointed criticism, if accurate, often gives the artist an inner sense of relief. The criticism that damages is that which disparages, dismisses, ridicules, or condemns.

I remember when I heard the words "Biblical criticism" in my town, it was with disdain: "Biblical criticism? How dare you?".

I got into television criticism because I thought it would be easier than film criticism. Film, you had to know 100 years of history, and TV you only had to know 40 when I started. And I thought, "Well, that's going to be so much easier." But film stayed pretty much the same. And television has changed so many times that my head hurts. So I made the wrong call there.

I don't think the criticism is fair. I think the criticism is assuming that Donald Trump giving up on something. He's not. I think if you do end up seeing - if you do end up seeing - some type of agreement regarding DACA and this massive-but-not-wall border security, talking about technology and people, all the things that we need to stop drugs and illegals from coming across the border. If that does become the framework for an agreement that does not mean the president's giving up on his priorities.

Poetry is about as much a 'criticism of life' as red-hot iron is a criticism of fire.

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.

I don't have to hear that criticism, that idotic criticism anymore.

If you pay too much attention to the criticism of the one who is inferior, then you must endure the constraints of the plane to which you have descended without feeling hurt.

Those who have chosen the path of least resistance in life, who cannot bear to bring themselves to make a stern value-judgment in criticism of their own most intimate feelings, achieve what they deserve: not self-understanding but radical self-superficialization, not a discovered but a self-ascribed identity that explains nothing, reveals nothing, means nothing, and ultimately accomplishes nothing culturally or intellectually.

To be successful you have to deal with CRAP. Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure.

Everything has added up to a load that I'm getting tired of carrying. It's gotten so complicated. It's the three failed marriages, and having kids that grew up without me, and it's the personal criticism, of being Mr. Nice Guy, or of divorcing my wife by fax, all that stuff, the journalism, some of which I find insulting.

The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

If you want to write for T.V. and movies, you will be subjected to kind and unkind criticism. You had better get used to it and develop a shell.

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

I gave up music criticism because of the increasingly obvious conflict of interest. I couldn't say anything bad about the records when I might be meeting that person's manager backstage an hour later.

The only time I get frustrated with activist criticism is if I have recognized them, and invited them to work with me to figure out how we solve this problem that they're concerned about, and either they don't engage out of the sense of purity - "I'm not going to shake his hand" - or you're not sufficiently prepared so you don't even know what to ask for, or you're not being strategic as an activist and trying to figure out how the process has to work in order for you to get what you want.

You'll never do anything creative, innovative or world changing if you fear criticism. Pioneers are easy targets for arrows!

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.

What if criticism is a science as well as an art? Not a pure or exact science, of course, but these phrases belong to a nineteenth-century cosmology which is no longer with us.

Persons of delicate taste endure stupid criticism better than they do stupid praise.

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.

The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism.

In the modern conflict between the Smile and the Laugh, I am all in favor of laughing. The recent stage of culture and criticism might very well be summed up as the men who smile criticizing the men who laugh.

Be sure to expose yourself to criticism: A fine polish requires an abrasive.

Criticism is easy, art is difficult.

Difficulties, opposition, criticism-these things are meant to be overcome, and there is a special joy in facing them and in coming out on top. It is only when there is nothing but praise that life loses its charm and I begin to wonder what I should do about it.

The great ideas of the West - rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience, thought, and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy- quite an achievement, surely, for any civilization- - remain the best, and perhaps the only, means for all people, no matter of what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom.

That's something you can't get off the wires in New York is people providing intelligent coverage of what your theater company in Podunk is up to. Many of the people who write what we call amateur criticism are professionals in anything other than name and receiving a paycheck. Very often, they know more than the professional critic who might be writing for their local newspaper. So, really, I'm all for it. It's changing the playing field, it's shaking things up, it's going to make the critical environment a healthier environment.

Barack and I have been in the public eye for many years now, and we've developed a thick skin along the way. When you're out campaigning, there will always be criticism. I just take it in stride, and at the end of the day, I know that it comes with the territory.

Faith can cut in so many ways. If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness - that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self criticism aside. There's no reflection.

If you can't fully believe in your ideas, it very quickly communicates to a group of actors who need something to hold onto. They need to believe that whatever criticism, whatever comment is received, is meant.

We are all born with an open heart, but at some point as we are growing up, things happen in our lives where we start to shut down, like rejection, not fitting in, wanting approval, judgments, comparisons, and criticism of others.

The fear of criticism is at the bottom of the destruction of most ideas which never reach the planning and action stage.

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

Ascetics and fakirs come to mitigate human suffering; to heal us and lead us on the path. They put up with criticism; they go through many worldly trials. Some of them have even become martyrs for our sake. But they have done all this with a smile and with gratitude to God. Hence sacrifice is a great virtue.

Now, as when I made films that were too autobiographical, the problem is how to escape naturalism. If you tell a strictly true story, because the way you are telling it is false, it creates naturalism. But I become a naturalist. And to become a naturalist is something I avoid. It is fake life - that is the problem. It is because we are familiar with situationnisme, and the critique of the spectacle, et cetera, which is a very fair criticism. People who have no life, and who watch this fake life on a screen - it's a very alienated situation. And that's what situationnisme is about.

I've learned to be careful of becoming a critic. Criticism really sours your heart.

Self-Criticism is the secret weapon of democracy, and candor and confession are good for the political soul.

The way I feel about Crunk Feminists. Here you have a bunch of bloggers who are not even quoting any feminists' works who are telling me what I can do better when I've been doing this as my life's work while y'all still in college! What are you talking about? And their criticism was of the idea that we should approach people like Rick Ross and Lil' Wayne with love when they have lyrics that we don't like, as opposed to approaching them with hate. That's their issue: How dare I say I approach Rick Ross with love!

What is new about Barthes's posthumous reputation is the view of him as a writer whose books of criticism and personal musings must be admired as serious and beautiful works of the imagination.

I believe the Bible tells a story we recognize as true. I don't just mean it tells an accurate story - though it's telling that the Bible stands tall even after more than 2,000 years of secular criticism.

Nothing is complete and thus nothing is exempt from criticism.

Contemplation: I read a lot of books on philosophy and religion, and try to keep always growing in that part of my life, because without having a spiritual grounding, I think you can get really swayed by the winds of all the praise or the criticism; it's all very, kind of, up and down. Try to stay up and focused.