372 quotes found
“The point of criticism is to build you as a leader and a dimension to reflect.”
“I was instructed long ago by a wise editor, "If you understand something you can explain it so that almost anyone can understand it. If you don't, you won't be able to understand your own explanati...”
“When you are criticised don't ignore it, but don't get overpowered by it, and certainly there is no need to be defensive about it. Rather, wait for a while and then weigh up its merits and demerits...”
“If God has given you a mission, you must be tough enough to handle what people say and still not be distracted while doing what you were created to do. Are you tough enough? God and the enemy know ...”
“They lost Olivia at Newport Beach. The panic made Alice hyperventilate. You were meant to be watching her, Nick kept saying. As if that were the point. That Alice had made a mistake. Not that Olivi...”
“A depressing number of people seem to process everything literally. They are to wit as a blind man is to a forest, able to find every tree, but each one coming as a surprise.”
“In the West, of course, God has been dead for some time. What remains is religion as social belief, which is at best a moral code and at worst social etiquette.”
“How we lavish our money and worship on Shakespeare without in the least knowing why!”
“And if I am further pressed to declare straightforwardly whether I mean to disparage these authorities [who criticize Ibsen], I reply, pointedly, that I do. I affirm that such criticisms are writte...”
“I purposely used a pretty cocky, abrasive writing style in Sex and Crime, to stir up some drama. My confrontational style quickly became the talk of the scene. Some of the things I wrote were so in...”
“Like so many of his successors in the language-crank world today, though, (Jonathan) Swift not only loathes (the) banal and common change (language); he ascribes it to moral failing.”
“Even if you do nothing, say nothing and be nothing, there will still be many who will criticize you. It is much better to be criticized for success than be condemned for failures because success ri...”
“To listen to criticism and act on it if it is valid and ignore it if it is not is a sign of intelligence.”
“Let's realise that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let's realise that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself o herself, and condem...”
“Unreasonable self-criticism represents a form of self-hatred and fear.”
“Before publication, and if provided by persons whose judgment you trust, yes, of course criticism helps. But after something is published, all I want to read or hear is praise.”
“An insincere critic of a sincere person never wins.”
“A critic can call any poem 'doggerel.' That is no more than a slur. 'Doggerel' or 'maudlin' or 'sappy' or 'sentimental' is in the ear of the listener. By the by, 'sentimental' is okay as it is defi...”
“The man who cannot listen to an argument which opposes his views either has a weak position or is a weak defender of it. No opinion that cannot stand discussion or criticism is worth holding. And i...”
“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
