Critics Quotes

• I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise.

  Noel Coward

  Funny, Humor, Long

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• It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Motivational, Courage, Strong

  Address at the Sorbonne, Paris, 23 Apr. 1910. Richard M. Nixon quoted this passage in his address to the nation announcing his decision to resign the presidency, 8 Aug. 1974. See Theodore Roosevelt 1; Theodore Roosevelt 2; Theodore Roosevelt 5

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• How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Positive Thinking, Criticism, Politics

  Benjamin Disraeli, (1992). “The Sayings of Disraeli”, p.24, Gerald Duckworth & Co

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• The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Criticism, Educate

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.176, Wordsworth Editions

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• This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

  Dorothy Parker

  Book, Reading, Beer

  Quoted in The AlgonquinWits, ed. Robert E. Drennan (1968)

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• I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.

  Ansel Adams

  Art, Needs, Knows

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• When my time on earth is gone, and my activities here are passed, I want they bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my ass!

  Bobby Knight

  Inspirational, Basketball, Sports

  "Knight moves to Texas" by Kevin Asseo, news.bbc.co.uk. March 22, 2001.

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• I like criticism. It makes you strong.

  LeBron James

  Basketball, Strong, Inspiration

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  The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.

  Norman Vincent Peale

  Inspirational, Integrity, Yoga

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• I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.

  Jean-Michel Basquiat

  Art, Needs, Knows

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  Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Integrity, Heart, Positivity

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• Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.

  Brendan Behan

  Funny, Editors, Criticism

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• Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

  James A. Baldwin

  Love, Relationship, Romantic

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  Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

  T. S. Eliot

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.1250, Faber & Faber

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• Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

  C. S. Lewis

  Courage, Army, Bravery

  In Cyril Connolly 'The Unquiet Grave' (1944) ch. 31

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• Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

  H. L. Mencken

  Love, Relationship, Anniversary

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• People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Inspirational, Perseverance, Attitude

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• Religion is like a pair of shoes.....Find one that fits for you, but don't make me wear your shoes.

  George Carlin

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

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• No man can be an exile if he remembers that all the world is one city.

  C. S. Lewis

  Men, Cities, Together

  C. S. Lewis (1980). “Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy but always against one's own body.

  George Orwell

  Fighting, Perception, Enemy

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.198, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

  Bertrand Russell

  Clever, Stupid, Smart

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• Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Funny, Motivational, Humorous

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• Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.

  Ralph Ellison

  Inspirational, Confidence, Power

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• You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

  C. S. Lewis

  Inspirational, Life, Spiritual

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• You're always going to face criticism, you're always going to face challenges, but those things are there to make you stronger and more committed.

  David Robinson

  Inspirational, Basketball, Confidence

  59 Copy quote

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