Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.
Critic - Criticism Quotes
Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest.
The good critic relates the adventures of his soul among works of art.
Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense.
There are two modes of criticism. One which… crushes to earth without mercy all the humble buds of Phantasy, all the plants that, though green and fruitful, are also prey to insects or have suffered by drouth. It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe the weed in its soil may be a pretty, graceful […]
The diversion of baiting an author has the sanction of all ages and nations, and is more lawful than the sport of teasing other animals, because, for the most part, he comes voluntarily to the stake, furnished, as he imagines, by the patron powers of literature, with resistless weapons, and impenetrable armour, with the mail […]
The twenty third century scholars made another exceptionally interesting observation. They pointed out that twentieth century institutions were caught in a savage crossfire between uncritical lovers and unloving critics. On the one side, those who loved their institutions tended to smother them in an embrace of death, loving their rigidities more than their promise, shielding […]
Why now, these fellows are only advertising my book; it is surely better a man should be abused than forgotten.
A portrait endowed with every merit excepting that of likeness to the original. (insult of Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer)
Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves with imagining that they have made a deeper search, or wider survey than others, and detected faults and follies which escape vulgar observation.
