This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Yonah ben Abraham Gerondi, known as Yonah of Gerona and Rabbenu Yonah
Love your critics and hate your flatterers.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
You know who the critics are? The men who failed in literature and art.
Art | Literature | Men |
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Appreciation | Beauty | Betrayal | Better | Children | Life | Life | People | Respect | World | Appreciation | Respect |
Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, fully Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
An author ought to write for the youth of his generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of the afterward.
No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.
Determination | Work |
The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.
Nothing |
The 'refined', the 'rich', the 'professional do nothing', the 'distiller of quintessence' desire only the peculiar, and sensational, the eccentric, the scandalous in today's art. And I myself, since the advent of cubism, have fed these fellows what they wanted and satisfied these critics with all the ridiculous ideas that have passed through my head. The less they understood, the more they have admired me!
When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.
Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
The critics can say stupid things and we can enjoy them, if we have the legitimate feeling of superiority — the satisfaction of a duty accomplished.
Duty | Superiority |
Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin
The critics analyze the sources of law, and find there either a god, product of the terrors of the savage, and stupid, paltry, and malicious as the priests who vouch for its supernatural origin, or else, bloodshed, conquest by fire and sword. They study the characteristics of law, and instead of perpetual growth corresponding to that of the human race, they find its distinctive trait to be immobility, a tendency to crystallize what should be modified and developed day by day.
It saddens me that a historic event like this is being misconstrued by a small but vocal group of critics trying to spread the notion that the UN gathering is really the work of radicals and atheists bent on destroying our families.
Work |
Some critics of public schools urge greater competition among schools as a way of returning control from bureaucrats to parents and teachers. I find their argument persuasive and I favor promoting choice among public schools, much as the President's Charter Schools Initiative encourages. Charter schools are public schools created and operated under a charter. They may be organized by parents, teachers, or others. The idea is that they should be freed from regulations that stifle innovation, so they can focus on getting results. By 1995, 19 states had enacted charter school laws about 200 schools have been granted charters. The Improving America's Schools Act, passed in October 1994 with the President's support, provided federal funds for a wide range of reforms, including launching charter schools. Federal funding is needed to break through bureaucratic attitudes that block change and frustrate students and parents, driving some to leave public schools.
Argument | Change | Choice | Competition | Control | Focus | Initiative | Parents | Public |
Ralph Ellison, fully Ralph Waldo Ellison
By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication.
Randy Pausch, fully Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch
You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.
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 |