This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
Truth telling is not compatible with the defense of the realm.
Tomes of aesthetic criticism hang on a few moments of real delight and intuition.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
You do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
Bitterness | Criticism | Man | Truth |
Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies in dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather than its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.
Criticism | Defects | Heart | Men | Repose | Torture | Work |
I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning.
Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe
The worst is yet to come, however. Far more devastating that this pruning is that nature then brings about a corresponding increase of the connecting links of the emotional circuits in this cyngulate gyrus with the lower survival fight-or-flight structures of the amygdala, that neural module linked directly with our ancient defense and survival system in the reptilian brain. In this way, a sharp curtailment of connections with the higher, transcendent frequencies of mind and heart is brought about in order to shift growth toward the lower, protective survival systems.
Defense | Growth | Heart | Mind | Nature | Order | Survival | System |
Miserable indeed is a world in which we have knowledge without understanding, criticism without appreciation, beauty without love, truth without passion, righteousness without mercy, and courtesy without a warm heart!
Appreciation | Beauty | Courtesy | Criticism | Heart | Knowledge | Love | Mercy | Passion | Righteousness | Truth | Understanding | World | Beauty |
The foundation of irreligious criticism is this: man makes religion; religion does not make man. Religion is, in fact, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet gained himself or has lost himself again... The wretchedness of religion is at once an express of and a protest against real wretchedness. Religion is the sigh of the opposed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Consciousness | Criticism | Esteem | Heart | Man | People | Protest | Religion | Self | Self-esteem | Soul | World |
What is slander? A verdict of “guilty” pronounced in the absence of the accused, with closed doors, without defense or appeal, by an interested and prejudiced judge.
Karl Popper, fully Sir Karl Raimund Popper
Science must begin with myths: with the criticism of myths.
Octavio Paz, born Octavio Paz Lozano
Our civilization has been founded on the notion of criticism: there is nothing sacred or untouchable except the freedom to think. Without criticism, that is to say, without rigor and experimentation, there is no science; without criticism there is no art or literature. I would also say that without criticism there is no healthy society.
Art | Civilization | Criticism | Freedom | Literature | Nothing | Sacred | Science | Society | Art |
Wit should be used as a shield for defense rather than as a sword to wound others.