Top 100 Good Criticism Quotes
#1. All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science.
Leslie Fiedler
#2. Our universities should produce good criticism; they do not or, at best, they do so only as federal prisons produce counterfeit money: a few hardened prisoners are more or less surreptitiously continuing their real vocations.
Randall Jarrell
#4. Theater really gets damaged when there is a paucity of good criticism around.
Tony Kushner
#5. Of course, I'd welcome protest. Good criticism is hard to find.
Aleksandra Mir
#6. I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don't have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.
Joel Osteen
#7. Frankly, it's good enough to lock up in a drawer.
Moliere
#8. Yet if strict criticism should till frown on our method, let candor and good humor forgive what is done to the best of our judgment, for the sake of perspicuity in the story and the delight and entertainment of our candid reader.
Sarah Fielding
#9. Though bitter, good medicine cures illness. Though it may hurt, loyal criticism will have beneficial effects.
Sima Qian
#10. Critical feedback shared in good faith is inherently a constructive dialogue. A "critique," a term that is both a noun and a verb, represents the systematical application of critical thought, a disciplined method of analysis, expressing of opinions, and rendering judgments.
Kilroy J. Oldster
#11. In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.
Terry Pratchett
#12. When the same lessons of life that taught them teaches you, you get a good understanding of what made them become who and what they became; you appreciate them better and you uphold the dignity of their integrity in high esteem!
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
#13. I'd never be where I am if more successful writers hadn't taken an interest in me and done me a good turn - be it chiming in with constructive criticism or giving me sound advice about my career plan.
Sara Sheridan
#14. In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.
Thomas B. Macaulay
#15. A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige throughbeing mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.
Rebecca West
#16. (Feedback) People become addicted to it. That's why journalism is so popular, because you want to hear, every day, what people think of what you just wrote. I think a little patience on that front can be good, too.
Zadie Smith
#17. Bauer's 'Criticism of the Gospel History' is worth a good dozen Lives of Jesus, because his work, as we are only now coming to recognise, after half a century, is the ablest and most complete collection of the difficulties of the Life of Jesus which is anywhere to be found.
Albert Schweitzer
#18. A good critic is the sorcerer who makes some hidden spring gush forth unexpectedly under our feet.
Francois Mauriac
#19. No government should be without critics. If its intentions are good then it has nothing to fear from criticism.
Thomas Jefferson
#20. Some people become hypercritical when stressed.
Then again, he hadn't been stressed last week. She giggled, remembering how he'd instructed her on the proper way to fold hand towels. Talk about nitpicky. Perhaps this would be a good time to call it quits.
Cherise Sinclair
#21. Being a good leader requires remembering that you're there for a reason, and the reason certainly isn't to have your way. High-integrity leaders not only welcome questioning and criticism - they insist on it.
Travis Bradberry
#22. I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But sometimes criticism can be hurtful. Be respectful. I'm a good piano player, I can sing well, I write good songs. If you don't like it, fair enough. But give me a break.
Elton John
#23. As Queen Elizabeth II said after her annus horribilis: "There can be no doubt that criticism is good for people and institutions . . . but scrutiny can be just as effective if it is made with a touch of gentleness, good humor, and understanding.
Tim Clissold
#24. Criticism is a surreal state, like a good drug gone bad. When it's bad you wish it would stop, and when it's good, you can't get enough.
Gale Harold
#25. But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.
Fiona Apple
#26. He was very good, it turned out, at outlining the flaws in the government as long as someone else was in charge of the government.
David Halberstam
#28. There is something essentially ridiculous about critics, anyway: what is good is good without our saying so, and beneath all our majesty we know this.
Randall Jarrell
#29. Creativity is contagious. And so is banality. Criticism is an art in itself. Don't let the dullness around destroy the creativity within. T.S. Eliot said, "honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry." Good to remember ...
Elif Shafak
#30. Criticism is the endeavour to find, to know, to love, to recommend, not only the best, but all the good, that has been known and thought and written in the world.
George Saintsbury
#31. Critics don't want to see directors they like make too much of a left turn. That's good for criticism.
Quentin Tarantino
#32. Most of the criticism of my work was pretty good, but occasionally it would not be. And I just sort of felt that they absolutely didn't get what I was doing. It was their limitations on what they thought art should be or what they thought my work should be in relation to earlier work or whatever.
Robert Barry
#33. Riffing on language will create wonderful effects you never intended. Which leads me to this writing advice: 'Always take credit for good stuff you didn't intend, because you'll be getting plenty of criticism in your career for bad stuff you didn't mean either.'
Roy Peter Clark
#34. People have pointed out evidences of personal feeling in my notices as if they were accusing me of a misdemeanor, not knowing that criticism written without personal feeling is not worth reading. It is the capacity for making good or bad art a personal matter that makes a man a critic.
George Bernard Shaw
#35. The only criticism heard with any frequency of Elton John's first American album, 'Elton John,' was that the production was too grandiose. The melodies were superb, and lyrics frequently very good, and the performances flawless.
Jon Landau
#36. You don't have to lay an egg to know if it tastes good.
Fran Lebowitz
#37. My friend, stay positive! It is really good to always stay positive. You don't really give a damn to negative people, circumstances and things! You only learn lessons from them that can help you take precautions to always stay positive for positive footprints!
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
#38. When your results are good, you are obviously going to have a lot of press. And when you start to falter a little bit, you are going to have some criticism, and there is nothing abnormal in that.
Carlos Ghosn
#39. I think criticism of good work should stop somewhere.
Sharad Pawar
#40. Criticism in good faith is good. When it's targeted solely to destruction, I'm not interested.
Andrea Bocelli
#41. The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot.
Criss Jami
#42. I hope that you have nothing against malice, my good engineer. In my eyes it is the brightest sword that reason has against the powers of darkness and ugliness. Malice, sir, is the spirit of criticism, and criticism marks the origin of progress and enlightenment.
Thomas Mann
#43. A lot of what I've written in criticism of my lust for virtue - my discovery that I've committed idolatry, making of the good an idol - is open to the charge of being still caught within the dialectic of idolatry. I've made a moral criticism of my moral consciousness. Meta-idolatry.
Susan Sontag
#44. There is critical mass with high-speed Internet connections, so video is a good user experience. And that means there can be critical mass for advertisers.
Jim C. Walton
#45. If I like a movie, I'm definitely advocating for it, but it's not "you should see this" or "you shouldn't see this." I try to take a longer view about what the movie is doing and where it fits in the context of other things, in the way that certain good literary criticism tries to do the same thing.
Wesley Morris
#46. The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)
C.S. Lewis
#47. What a splendid thing is literature, what a splendid thing! It strengthens and instructs the heart of man. Literature is a sort of picture. It connotes at once passion, expression, fine criticism, good learning, and a document.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#48. To study one good master till you understand him will teach you more than a superficial acquaintance with a thousand: power of criticism does not consist in knowing the names or the manner of many painters, but in discerning the excellence of a few.
John Ruskin
#49. There's no such thing as an actor giving positive criticism to a director. The minute you say 'Don't you think it would look nicer ... ', that director's going to hate your guts. Particularly if it's a good idea.
Peter Mullan
#50. An author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an animal whom every body is privileged to attack: for though all are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them.
Matthew Gregory Lewis
#51. Make criticism in good time; don't get into the habit of criticizing only after the event.
Mao Tse-tung
#52. Critics can be your most important friend. I don't read criticism of my stuff only because when it's bad, it's rough-and when it's good, it's not good enough.
Kevin Bacon
#53. You have to take your ego out of it and say, do I want people to be obsequious to me or do I want to write good books? If it's the latter, you have to take criticism. It's annoying, but that's how to do good stuff; listen to other people.
Denise Mina
#54. Every man who strikes blows for power, for influence, for institutions, for the right, must be just as good an anvil as he is a hammer.
J.G. Holland
#55. The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.
Charles Buxton
#56. Your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism.
Rainer Maria Rilke
#57. I think the thing that I most deplore about American writing ... is a lack of craftsmanship. It comes right down to this - the lack of absolute love for language, the lack of sitting down and working a good idea into a gem of an idea.
Harper Lee
#58. Constructive criticism is about finding something good and positive to soften the blow to the real critique of what really went on.
Paula Abdul
#59. Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.
Jean De La Bruyere
#60. Bad criticism has followed things like comic books or TV, and they put down a medium. A medium cannot be inherently good or bad.
Corey Stoll
#61. Dodi got a lot of criticism when he began dating Princess Diana. No one seemed to think he was good enough for her.
Lorna Luft
#62. There's good directors and bad directors. Some of the critics are really conscientious and really try to do what they can popularize the work or to explain the work and so on. And then there's the critics who just wants to make a reputation by attacking. Those are the ones I'm not keen on.
Peter Bogdanovich
#63. Teachers have power. We may cripple them by petty economics; by Government regulations, by the foolish criticism of an uninformed press; but their power exists for good or evil ...
Winifred Holtby
#64. But it did her good, for those whose opinion had real value gave her the criticism which is an author's best education; and when the first soreness was over, she could laugh at her poor little book, yet believe in it still, and feel herself the wiser and stronger for the buffeting she had received.
Louisa May Alcott
#65. The Enlightenment (The beginning of) a way of pursuing knowledge with a tradition of criticism and seeking good explanations instead of reliance on authority.
David Deutsch
#66. We all have the tendency to believe self-doubt and self-criticism, but listening to this voice never gets us closer to our goals. Instead, try on the point of view of a mentor or good friend who believes in you, wants the best for your, and will encourage you when you feel discouraged.
Kelly McGonigal
#67. My criticism is too severe sometimes and that is not good. But why don't you start doing your work unless your leader flies into a rage? It is not that you cannot do it but that you don't want to do it.
Zhu Rongji
#68. You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Winston S. Churchill
#69. You can waste a perfectly good life trying to meet the standards of someone who thinks you're not good enough because they can't understand who you are.
Barbara Sher
#70. If a man has the assurance within his own heart that he is worthy, and that he is laboring to the best of his ability to do good, he can stand up under the condemnation, the criticism and the censure of those by whom he is surrounded.
Heber J. Grant
#71. Blame where you must, be candid where you can, And be each critic the Good-natured Man.
Oliver Goldsmith
#72. When I was on my way to the podium a gentleman stopped me and said I was as good a politician as I was an actor. What a cheap shot.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
#73. When a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead of compliments, he forgets that it was not his good judgment, but his charming manners, that won her heart.
Helen Rowland
#74. I divide criticism into two categories - one coming from those who understand music, who are worthy of being critical because they are knowledgeable about what they are saying; and then there is another category of people who would criticise you anyway, whether your work is good or bad.
A.R. Rahman
#75. I'm no stranger to criticism. You're never going to be good enough, or just the right thing in everybody's eyes.
Christina Aguilera
#76. A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship.
Francis Crick
#77. Old art offers just as good a criticism of new art as new art offers of old.
Jasper Johns
#78. I did not mind the public criticism. That sort of thing has not changed any program I thought was good.
Branch Rickey
#79. I feel like oversized trousers on sale, not even made of good material, that no one wants to buy. They just hang in there hoping that someone someday will compromise for its low cost.
Pawan Mishra
#80. constructive criticism is "good notes." A good note says what is wrong, what is missing, what isn't clear, what makes no sense.
Ed Catmull
#81. A good critic is the man who describes his adventures among masterpieces.
Anatole France
#82. What do you think of the criticism that you're not very good?
George Harrison
#83. You have to remain cool under fire and let criticism roll off you. Good leaders handle conflict easily and bad ones are eaten up by it.
Donald Trump
#84. It is essential for the good of criticism that both the critic and the public face the fact that a review is not the voice of God.
Judith Crist
#85. Nostalgia is recall without the criticism of the present day, all the good parts, memory without the pain. Finally, nostalgia asks so little of us, just to be noticed and revisited;
Carrie Brownstein
#86. It is possible in medicine, even when you intend to do good, to do harm instead. That is why science thrives on actively encouraging criticism rather than stifling it.
Richard Dawkins
#87. 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.
Malcolm Cowley
#88. Just as no monkey is as good-looking as the ugliest of humans, no academic is worthier than the worst of the creators
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
#89. With the best of intentions you toss me a lifeline.
Failing to see how a piece of rope will do me any good, I ignore it and drown.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#90. In a way, a certain amount of self-criticism is a good thing, because it keeps you humble. Realizing that no matter what success you've achieved, you can still make enemies makes you humble, too.
Lynn Johnston
#91. But, when I had this feeling and started painting sacred art, as I had this feeling to do, then it come to me: my problem is I'll get a lot of criticism and another problem is my work's not good enough to sell.
Howard Finster
#92. Reproof is a medicine, like mercury or opium; if it be improperly administered, it will do harm instead of good.
Horace Mann
#93. I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.
Van Morrison
#94. A good rule, for this job and many others: give praise publicly and criticism privately. The
Jonathan Kern
#95. If you love my work, you are a good critic. If you do not love my work, you are a 'not good' critic.
Roman Payne
#96. Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
Flannery O'Connor
#97. Self-Criticism is the secret weapon of democracy, and candor and confession are good for the political soul.
Adlai Stevenson I
#98. In life, most of us are highly skilled at suppressing action. All the improvisation teacher has to do is to reverse this skill and he creates very 'gifted' improvisers. Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.
Malcolm Gladwell
#99. I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.
Victor Hugo
#100. As long as people believe in the written word and a good story.. They will believe in me.
Solange Nicole
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
