Quotes about criticism

Vigorous criticism is more constructive in science than in some other areas of human endeavor because in science there are adequate standards of validity that can be agreed upon by competent practitioners the world over. The objective of such criticism is not to suppress but rather to encourage the advance of new ideas: those that survive a firm skeptical scrutiny have a fighting chance of being right, or at least useful.

The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.

The great critic ... must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.

It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise...

...you know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.

People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.

Like every writer, he measured the virtues of other writers by their performance, and asked that they measure him by what he conjectured or planned.

If you arrive late, you won't know what anything is about, and if you are there all the way from the beginning, you won't care. p. 277

The management's method of procedure is evidently to hire some well-known man to write the book, and then, as soon as it is written, to give it away to some deserving family, and go out and engage an assortment of specialty acts. p. 151

It is advertised as “a seagoin’ comedy,” and anytime they go leaving off the final g that way, you know what to expect. p. 324

I thought that was going to be a good song, too, and then they went and rhymed “time” and “Rhine,” and spoiled everything. p. 24