Criticism Quotes — Page 33

Writer, Essayist, Playwright

“Great critics do not explicate a text; they describe it and then report on what they have described, if the description itself is not the criticism.”

Criticism Critics Description

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Gustave Flaubert

Novelist

“Criticism occupies the lowest place in the literary hierarchy: as regards form, almost always; and as regards moral value, incontestably. It comes after rhyming games and acrostics, which at least require a certain inventiveness.”

Games Criticism Hierarchy

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GR

Glenn Reynolds

Blogger, Commentator

“I can think of no better reason to vote against Obama than the prospect of an administration where any criticism of the President is treated as racism.”

Thinking Criticism Racism

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the lay, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”

Life Imagination Criticism

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“Our taste is too delicate and particular. It says nay to the poet's work, but never yea to his hope.”

Criticism Taste Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know.”

Criticism Analysis Adequate

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”

Men Steps Criticism

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”

Past Philosophy Criticism

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HJ

Henry James

Author

“Nothing, of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion of 'liking' a work of art or not liking it; the more improved criticism will not abolish that primitive, that ultimate, test.”

Art Fashion Criticism

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HJ

Henry James

Author

“The practice of "reviewing"... in general has nothing in common with the art of criticism.”

Art Practice Criticism

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HJ

Henry James

Author

“The effect, if not the prime office, of criticism is to make our absorption and our enjoyment of the things that feed the mind as aware of itself as possible, since that awareness quickens the mental demand, which thus in turn wanders further and further for pasture. This action on the part of the mind practically amounts to a reaching out for the reasons of its interest, as only by its ascertaining them can the interest grow more various. This is the very education of our imaginative life.”

Mind Office Criticism

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HJ

Henry James

Author

“We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donn´e: our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.”

Ideas Artist Criticism

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