Criticism Quotations | Page 2

Reciprocal accountability, or criticism [is] the only known antidote to error.

Alas, criticism has always been what human beings, especially leaders, most hate to hear.

It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever.

Litmus test: If you can't describe Ricardo 's Law of Comparative Advantage and explain why people find it counterintuitive, you don't know enough about economics to direct any criticism or praise at " capitalism " because you don't know what other people are referring to when they use that word .

If anything, the negative press and the criticism take away the opportunity to feel as good as you can feel about your employment.

Criticism discloses that which it would fain conceal, but conceals that which it professes to disclose; it is therefore, read by the discerning, not to discover the merits of an author, but the motives of his critic.

When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire; we shall often find this a very consolatory question.

Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good; if meagre, muddy, vapid and sour, both are fit only to engender colic and wind; but if rich, generous and sparkling, they communicate a genial glow to the spirits, improve the taste, and expand the heart.

Tis not the wholesome sharp mortality, Or modest anger of a satiric spirit, That hurts or wounds the body of a state, But the sinister application Of the malicious, ignorant, and base Interpreter; who will distort and strain The general scope and purpose of an author To his particular and private spleen.

The most striking fault in work by young or beginning novelists, submitted for criticism, is irrelevance--due either to infatuation or indecision. To direct such an author's attention to the imperative of relevance is certainly the most useful--and possibly the only--help that can be given.