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Criticism Quotes
"Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves."
36
"You just never give up, no matter how hard the challenges are, and observe this world with a healthy dose of criticism and don't just follow the herd like somebody else might do."
31
"In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism."
30
"I have been both praised and criticized. The criticism stung, but the praise sometimes bothered me even more. To have received such praise and honors has always been puzzling to me."
20
"The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass."
18
"I mean no film is beyond criticism, but I think we've made a very modest movie."
17
"Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book."
17
"I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist."
16
"If you keep your feathers well oiled the water of criticism will run off as from a duck's back."
15
"I am not even an atheist so much as an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually true.... There may be people who wish to live their lives under cradle-to-grave divine supervision, a permanent surveillance and monitoring. But I cannot imagine anything more horrible or grotesque."
15
"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."
13
"So as an amateur Olympic competitor I loved criticism, because it made me better. But now as a professional I don't really know how to channel it or where to take it, so I don't take it quite as well."
13
"My opinions and principles are subjects of just criticism. I put myself before the public voluntarily."
12
"The devil's happy when the critics run you off."
12
"The rich are different from you and me because they have more credit."
11
"Everything is entertainment; criticism is now entertainment and it seems that the French directors have woken up one day and suddenly realised that they were not backed up any more."
11
"I know there are reporters who ridicule pundits."
11
"Anytime you put a movie out it's subject to such scrutiny and such criticism."
11
"Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings."
11
"A state that suppresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law."
11
"Mrs Woolf's complaint should be addressed to her creator, who made her, rather than me."
10
"Philosophers, as things now stand, are all too fond of offering criticism from on high instead of studying and understanding things from within."
10
"The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon."
10
"We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects."
10
"I'm absolutely convinced of that. Israel is the representative of the United States in that part of the world. Its policies are so integrated with American policies that they use the same language."
10
"Whoever looks at America will see: the ship is powered by stupidity, corruption, or prejudice."
10
"She likes herself, yet others hates, For that which in herself she prizes; And while she laughs at them, forgets She is the thing that she despises."
10
"To silence criticism is to silence freedom."
9
"Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down."
9
"A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender."
9
"I'd call it a new version of voodoo economics, but I'm afraid that would give witch doctors a bad name."
9
"For what I wrote that started this whole controversy, I deserved to be criticized, and I felt bad about writing it. I felt bad mainly as a writer and a thinker."
9
"The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes."
9
"It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially - like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye."
9
"Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that."
9
"He was not only a bore; he bored for England."
8
"You could put on monkeys jumping up and down and get bigger numbers than MSNBC."
8
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