Critical Judgment Quotes

We properly judge a critic's virtue not by his freedom from error but by the nature of the mistakes he does make, for he makes them, if he is worth reading, because he has in mind something besides his perceptions about art in itself - he has in mind the demands that he makes upon life.

People would say, "Well yeah, if I wrote action films, if I wrote the trash that you write, I could make millions too. But I want to write my real movie about these Guatemalan immigrants, and how they hid under a truck for 300 miles." And that's fine. I'd love to make that film too, but to dismiss everything I did just because it's action seems wrong.

Yet if strict criticism should till frown on our method, let candor and good humor forgive what is done to the best of our judgment, for the sake of perspicuity in the story and the delight and entertainment of our candid reader.

All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment; he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor.

I'm so impressed by Jennifer Lawrence and Carey Mulligan. They have this exquisite taste. They are very gifted in their ability to make great choices.

[Freud's] sense of reality is less clouded by wishful thinking than is the case with other people and [he combines] the qualities of critical judgment, earnestness and responsibility.

I don't know anyone actually who does care what a critic says.

Guard against the prestige of great names; see that your judgments are your own.

Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.

Women see faults much more readily in each other than they can discover perfections.

For the critic, the word 'best' is like a grenade without a pin: Toss it around too freely, and you're likely to get your hand blown off.

When you evaluate people critically, you bring danger upon yourself.

You find very few critics who approach their job with a combination of information and enthusiasm and humility that makes for a good critic. But there is nothing wrong with critics as long as people don't pay any attention to them. I mean, nobody wants to put them out of a job and a good critic is not necessarily a dead critic. It's just that people take what a critic says as a fact rather than an opinion, and you have to know whether the opinion of the critic is informed or uninformed, intelligent of stupid -- but most people don't take the trouble.

Criticism, though dignified from the earliest ages by the labours of men eminent for knowledge and sagacity, has not yet attained the certainty and stability of science.

From whichever angle one looks at it, the application of racial theories remains a striking proof of the lowered demands of public opinion upon the purity of critical judgment.

I can be kind of razor sharp in my disapproval.

We are neither worse nor better than those who eye us critically.

Would you be a poet Before you've been to school? Ah, well! I hardly thought you So absolute a fool.

Men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent.

I'm always listening and watching; my ear is like a boom mike. And judging, frankly. Constantly judging.

The historical importance of a composer does not always go hand in hand with the quality of their work.

You call that statesmanship. I call it an emotional spasm.

The philosopher ... subjects experience to his critical judgment, and this contains a value judgment namely, that freedom from toil is preferable to toil, and an intelligent life is preferable to a stupid life. It so happened that philosophy was born with these values. Scientific thought had to break this union of value judgment and analysis, for it became increasingly clear that the philosophic values did not guide the organisation of society.

Do not form your judgment about our military doctrine from the assessments given by NATO representatives.

A writer judging his own work is like deceived husband - he is frequently the last person to appreciate the true state of affairs.