Best Criticism Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“The Author To Her Book”

“When someone offers you lines like that, he must be Mephistopheles and you must be Faust. You know you shouldn't succumb to such language, but you succumb.”

“Poetry is frequently introduced as an object of dissection rather than an experience of encounter. Students are trained to hunt for metaphors, symbols, and devices before they are allowed to feel the poem. This premature intellectualisation breeds anxiety rather than appreciation.”

“When poetry becomes synonymous with examination stress, it is unsurprising that readers abandon it once formal education ends.”

“Poetry, if it has too many layers, should at least lead readers to the openings of the caves the poet built with words and then let them explore on their own! If it does not happen, the travellers might return even without knocking at all!”

“Sadly, but certainly, a promising genre of literature in poetry that began with pomp and a loud thud, a banger and an emphatic entry in the public domain with so many expectations, has been circumambulating the corridors of university classrooms and the decision war-rooms of the government-funded and apparently biased award bodies.”

“From the actual public discourse of life, poetry, unfortunately, has vanished! Whatever residue is left has the silver touch of verse and aesthetic in the subconscious of the aged population from the bygone era!”

“Poetry, today, is struggling for its space. Poets are writing poems. Readers are not reading poems. Other poets are reading other poets’ poems. They seldom like or appreciate what others write. Poetry, therefore, has turned itself into an unresolving cycle of paradox!”

“In the beginning, poets make their best efforts to fit words into their rhyme and lyric. However, as time passes and the ink mystifies, poets tend to let their thoughts conjure a rhyme in tune with the extraordinary struggles of ordinary life.”

“Once in a golden hour”

“A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen.”

“People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.”

“[His research into biblical criticism had lead him to the conclusion that most of what was contained in traditional religion simply wasn't true]”

“You'd challenge me and lose. You know it, I know it, but you'd still do it. Sometimes your sense of honor confuses the hell out of me.”

“When put to the best use, poetry has not only the power to stir one’s emotions and thoughts, but also the soul itself!”

“As for those who spite you, and seemingly just because, it's only evident that they're learning from you. Maybe you taste bad - kind of like medicine, kind of like truth - and to them, you're thought unsafe. There is flattery in being chewed out and spit up. Humans have always had a hard time digesting foreign things.”

“I stared at her. "But she drugged us.”

“Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.”

“Criticism loses power the moment you stop needing it to be wrong.”

“When it isn’t possible to attack what is said, they attack the one who said it.”

“At the end of the day, what is life? A beautiful journey. Why must we take it so seriously and not enjoy every moment of it? Why not let any person have his chance in anything he desires? ...Why not vanish the hate and forgive? Why not follow our dreams and make them reality?”

“The best people are always the worst. They drive everyone mad by being so good at second-guessing everything bad.”

“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

“I criticize by creation, not by finding fault.”

“An acquaintance merely enjoys your company, a fair-weather companion flatters when all is well, a true friend has your best interests at heart and the pluck to tell you what you need to hear.”

“Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment. An honest woman can sell tangerines all day and remain a good person until she dies, but there will always be naysayers who will try to convince you otherwise. Perhaps this woman did not give them something for free, or at a discount. Perhaps too, that she refused to stand with them when they were wrong — or just stood up for something she felt was right. And also, it could be that some bitter women are envious of her, or that she rejected the advances of some very proud men. Always trust your heart. If the Creator stood before a million men with the light of a million lamps, only a few would truly see him because truth is already alive in their hearts. Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them. He who does not have Truth in his heart, will always be blind to her.”

“There is a common tendency to turn off one's imagination at certain points and refuse to contemplate the possibility of having to do certain things and cope with the attendant moral problems. The things simply get done by the social machine, and one can keep one's clear conscience and one's moral indignation unsullied.”

“Giving importance to what we think because we thought it, taking our own selves not only (to quote the Greek philosopher) as the measure of all things but as their norm or standard, we create in ourselves, if not an interpretation, at least a criticism of the universe, which we don't even know and therefore cannot criticize. The giddiest, most weak-minded of us then promote that criticism to an interpretation that's superimposed, like a hallucination; induced rather than deduced. It's a hallucination in the strict sense, being an illusion based on something only dimly seen.”

“His conception of the universe is, however, instinctive, not intellectual; it can't be criticized as a concept, because there’s none there, and it can't be criticized as temperament, because temperament can't be criticized.”

“If we wanted to construct a basic philosophical attitude from these scientific utterances of”