This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Art too is just a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without knowing, prepare for it; in everything real one is closer to it, more its neighbor, than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they pretend to be close to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art - as, for example, all of journalism does and almost all criticism and three quarters of what is called (and wants to be called) literature.
Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing.
Acceptance | Criticism | Important | Power | Silence | Strength |
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
I never read anything concerning my work. I feel that criticism is a letter to the public which the author, since it is not directed to him, does not have to open and read.
Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
Read as little as possible of literary criticism - such things are either partisan opinions, which have become petrified and meaningless, hardened and empty of life, or else they are just clever word-games, in which one view wins today, and tomorrow the opposite view. Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism.
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
What are the spiritual disciplines that give the mind its upward direction? One learns all this by constantly living in holy company. The rishis of olden times lived either in solitude or in the company of holy persons; therefore they could easily renounce 'woman and gold' and 'fix their minds on God. They had no fear nor did they mind the criticism of others.
Richard Livingstone, fully Sir RIchard Winn Livingstone
There is no virtue in being uncritical nor is it a habit to which the young are given. But criticism is only the burying beetle that gets rid of what is dead, and, since the world lives by creative and constructive forces, and not by negation and destruction, it is better to grow up in the company of prophets than of critics.
One sometimes hears it said that kin selection is all very well as a theory, but there are few examples of its working in practice. This criticism can only be made by someone who does not understand what kin selection means. The truth is that all examples of child protection and parental care, and all associated bodily organs, milk secreting glands, kangaroo pouches, and so on, are examples of the working in nature of the kin-selection principle. The critics are of course familiar with the widespread existence of parental care, but they fail to understand that parental care is no less an example of kin selection than brother/sister altruism.
Care | Criticism | Example | Existence | Nature | Truth | Child | Understand |
A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism
To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising.
Robert Benchley, fully Robert Charles Benchley
I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.
After a few years of marriage a man can look right at a woman without seeing her and a woman can see right through a man without looking at him.
Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
The overbearing matter-of-factness which sacrifices the subject to the ascertainment of the truth, rejects at once truth and objectivity.
Criticism | Man | Means | Organic | Price | Technology | Will |
Theodor W. Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
Dialectic thought is an attempt to break through the coercion of logic by its own means.
Criticism | Indispensable | Mind |
The process has aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown richer the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has the average man, the wage-worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in this country and at the present time. There have been abuses connected with the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person specially benefited only on condition of conferring immense incidental benefits upon others. Successful enterprise, of the type which benefits all mankind, can only exist if the conditions are such as to offer great prizes as the rewards of success.
Blame | Conduct | Criticism | Efficiency | Good | Important | Liberty | Means | Nothing | Praise | Public | Right | Service | Truth | Wrong |
To any nation that stands for human liberties, they have an Ally in the United States.
It takes heroic humility to be yourself.
Action | Criticism | Panic | Preference | World |
Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts: to live one’s life well and happily.
Authority | Children | Criticism | Family | Fear | Freedom | Important | Means | Nothing | Order | Power | Youth | Youth |