This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
Defense | Justice | Liberty | Moderation | Virtue | Virtue | Moderation |
Hiding your faults from others so they won’t correct you might save you from momentary unpleasantness, but you will remain with your faults... Fear of criticism stems from inferiority feelings... If you feel hurt by someone’s criticism, remember it is your choice to feel hurt. You can choose self-statements that allow you to feel grateful for the opportunity to improve yourself.
Choice | Criticism | Fear | Feelings | Inferiority | Opportunity | Self | Will |
Edward Bernays, fully Edward Louis Bernays
The best defense against propaganda: more propaganda.
Defense |
You cannot be hurt by criticism when you know that you are master of your thoughts, reactions and emotions.
Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.
Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
Children are never sure of their abilities. A public attack on intelligence hits their most vulnerable spot. Virulent criticism doesn't motivate children to improve; on the contrary, it ruins their initiative.
Children | Criticism | Intelligence | Public |
Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.
To me, then, true criticism consists in trying to find out the intrinsic worth of the thing itself, and not in attributing a quality to that thing. You attribute a quality to an environment, to an experience, only when you want to derive something from it, when you want to gain or to have power or happiness. Now this destroys true criticism. Your desire is perverted through attributing values, and therefore you cannot see clearly. Instead of trying to see the flower in its original and entire beauty, you look at it through coloured glasses, and therefore you can never see it as it is.
Faith lived in the incognito is one which is located outside the criticism coming from society, from politics, from history, for the very reason that it has itself the vocation to be a source of criticism. It is faith (lived in the incognito) which triggers the issues for the others, which causes everything seemingly established to be placed in doubt, which drives a wedge into the world of false assurances.
I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.
John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden
You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.
Karl Popper, fully Sir Karl Raimund Popper
The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff. He is well aware that acceptance or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it.
Acceptance | Criticism | Discussion | Think |
Junius, psyeudonym of unknown English Political Writer NULL
Guilt is a poor, helpless, dependent being. Without the alliance of able, diligent, and let me add, fortunate fraud, it is inevitably undone. If the guilty culprit be obstinately silent, it forms a deadly presumption against him; if he speaks, talking tends only to his discovery, and his very defense often furnishes the materials for his conviction.
Defense | Presumption | Talking | Guilty |
Jules Feiffer, fully Jules Ralph Feiffer
Adults have their defense against time; it is called "responsibility," and once one assumes it he can transform his life into a set of routines which will account for all those hours when he is stale or tired. It is not size or age or childishness that separates children from adults. It is "responsibility." Adults come in all sizes, ages, and differing varieties of childishness, but as long as they have "responsibility" we recognize, often by the light gone out of their eyes, that they are what we call grownup. When grownups cope with "responsibility" for enough number of years they are retired from it. They are given, in exchange, a "leisure problem." They sit around with their "leisure problem" and try to figure out what to do with it. Sometimes they go crazy. Sometimes they get other jobs. Sometimes it gets too much for them and they die. They have been handed an undetermined future of nonresponsible time and they don't know what to do about it. And that is precisely the way it is with children. Time is the everpresent factor in their lives. It passes slowly or fast, always against their best interests: good time is over in a minute; bad time takes forever. Short on "responsibility," they are confronted with a "leisure problem."
Age | Children | Defense | Enough | Future | Good | Life | Life | Light | Size | Time | Will |