When you receive criticism from well-meaning people, it pays to ask, ‘Are they right?’ And if they are, you need to adapt what they’re doing. If they’re not right, if you really have conviction that...

If everybody likes you, you are doing it wrong.

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful...

The true reader reads every work seriously in the sense that he reads it whole-heartedly, makes himself as receptive as he can. But for that very reason he cannot possibly read every work solemly or...

[L]ife is a phenomenon in need of criticism, for we are, as fallen creatures, in permanent danger of worshipping false gods, of failing to understand ourselves and misinterpreting the behaviour of others, of growing unproductively...

And when you are criticized, as you will be, remind your critics that you have the right to speak your mind. And if they shout you down, as they probably will, then inform them that...

If he can sometimes be a lightning rod and keep some of the criticism away from the president, I think that’s fine with him.

To swear day and night by media slander will make one a bigger victim than the slandered. It doesn’t take much to begin to fear a mere illusion of human badness.

A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually...

Who is the wrong person to criticise?You

Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots.

People quickly grow accustomed to being the slaves of mystery.

All great people had critics but they still believe in the beauty of their dreams, fully persuaded to stay focused and determined for the realisationof their dreams.

Freedom of Speech has become Freedom of Stupidity on the internet. Some ignominious users should not be given a voice to comment at all.

Even before 9/11 I was gripped by a sense of dread: our lack of criticism about what we were doing in the Middle East – the slagging off of a whole religious tradition.

The public talk — and injuriously! — Well! are you ignorant of the little importance of such talk? — The public speak! — It is not the world, it is only the despicable part of...

You sounded like Dolly parton on helium.”(After kristy lee cook of season 7 on american idol,sang her country rendition of the Beatles'”Eight Days A Week.)

Do not seek praise. Seek criticism.

My capacity as a monk was to passionately believe utter nonsense, and when you’re an actor you have to do the same thing. Also, Christianity used to have a lot to do with self-loathing and...

Those who doubt themselves will doubt you. Those who limit themselves will try to limit you. Do not fight them. Smile, go your own way, and trust that your example is enough.

A depressing number of people seem to process everything literally. They are to wit as a blind man is to a forest, able to find every tree, but each one coming as a surprise.

The actions of a leader are always criticised by scholars as well as common men. A scholar has no obligation to produce result, so he is free to rebuke leaders for not sticking to noble...

Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.

To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.

I have often misunderstood men grossly, and I have misrepresented them when I understood them, sacrificing sense to make a phrase. Here, of course, is where even the most conscientious critic often goes aground; he...

In the past few years, more and more passionate debates about the nature of SFF and YA have bubbled to the surface. Conversations about race, imperialism, gender, sexuality, romance, bias, originality, feminism and cultural appropriation...

If you think it’s offensive that I call alleged biblical miracles ridiculous, you should ask yourself whether or not it’s ridiculous to insist that Muhammad flew on a winged horse. Or that the earth was...

She recognized in Kelsey the nationalism of liberal Americans who copiously criticized America but did not like you to do so; they expected you to be silent and grateful, and always reminded you of how...

The fact that we are now crusaders needn’t blind us to the fact that for a very long time we have been, as Badger would say, echidnas. I can think of a hundred ways already...

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they...

At the behest of the criterion of authenticity, much that was once thought to make up the very fabric of culture has come to seem of little account, mere fantasy or ritual, or downright falsification....

ressentiment criticism” that it does not seriously desire that its demands be fulfilled. It does not want to cure the evil. The evil is merely the pretext for the criticism.

When you say, ‘Women are untrustworthy bitches. They lie and cheat and will nail anything that moves.’ Do you know what I hear from your lips? Listen now, for I shall tell you. I hear...

Procrastination threatens critics’ livelihood.

If philosophy has to serve some really noble purpose, it must be more observant than critical towards life.

I expect it (criticism). I would do the same thing. My wife is the most critical. She said, ‘This is ridiculous…’ But you have two choices – not to do it or do it.

I want to say to the literature teacher who remains wilfully, even boastfully ignorant of a major element of contemporary fiction: you are incompetent to teach or judge your subject. Readers and students who do...

My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?We have found that man must depend on himself. He must clear the land; he must build the home; he must plow and plant; he must invent;...

perversion” accounts for the pleasure, since what he enjoys, among other things, is his opacity. But that isn’t the reason THEY continue to push the conspirator to make himself a critic, to subjectivate himself as...

The covers of this book are too far apart.

If Makar Denisych was just a clerk or a junior manager, then no one would have dared talk to him in such a condescending, casual tone, but he is a ‘writer’, and a talentless mediocrity!People...

The popular distinction between ‘constructive’ and ‘destructive’ criticism is a sentimentality: the mind too weak to perceive in what respects the bad fails is not strong enough to appreciate in what the good succeeds. To...

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...

Now, if there were an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating then this administration would take the gold, world-records for violations of national and international law. They want another four year term to continue to...

One of the bigger mistakes of our time, I suppose, was preaching the demonization of all judgment without teaching how to judge righteously. We now live in an age where, apart from the inability to...

It is believed that the critics are the men who have failed in literature and art. It is so in social life, too. Without any egoistic interest nobody criticizes the government. Give the critics the...

Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and...

History, like love, is so apt to surround her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary brightness.

Now that I think about it, it seems to me that’s what Idiocy is: the ability to be enthusiastic all the time about anything you like, so that a drawing on the wall does not...

Making judgments on films is in many ways so peculiarly vaporous an occupation that the only question is why, beyond the obvious opportunities for a few lectures fees and a little careerism at a dispiritingly...