Never criticize a man until youve walked a mile in his moccasins. – American Indian Proverb
Those who have free seats at a play hiss first. – Chinese Proverb
Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friends forehead. – Chinese Proverb
Fix the problem, not the blame. – Japanese Proverb
There is so much good in the worst of us, And so much bad in the best of us, That it ill behooves any of us, To say anything about the rest of us. – Anon.
All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism. – Anon.
Even the lion has to defend himself against flies. – Proverb
Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity. – Joseph Addison
Culture is only true when implicitly critical, and the mind which forgets this revenges itself in the critics it breeds. Criticism is an indispensable element of culture. – Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno
Most of us are umpires at heart; we like to call balls and strikes on somebody else. – Leo Aikman
The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D. – Nelson Algren
I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style. – Louis Aragon
The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid. – W. H. Auden
Criticism should be a casual conversation. – W. H. Auden
To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons. – Charles Baudelaire
Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby. – Walter Benjamin
The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion. – Walter Benjamin
Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present. – John Berger
Be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. – Bible
The covers of this book are too far apart. – Ambrose Bierce
