A Quote by A. E. Housman

The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic. — © A. E. Housman
The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
Criticism is now become mere hangman's work, and meddles only with the faults of authors ; nay, the critic is disgusted less with their absurdities than excellence ; and you cannot displease him more than in leaving him little room for his malice.
A critic is someone who meddles with something that is none of his business.
For the critic, criticism is a form of natural self-expression, as poetry is to the poet. So, for a critic, criticism is a true thing. Criticism isn’t written for poets, it’s written for other readers. One hopes it is true for other readers if it’s true for oneself.
Failing once doesn't make you a failure. One difference between a successful person and an average person is how much criticism they can take, the average person cannot take much criticism and that's why they fail to be leaders and they do remain average all their lives
No publisher should ever express an opinion on the value of what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary critic to decide. I can quite understand how any ordinary critic would be strongly prejudiced against a work that was accompanied by a premature and unnecessary panegyric from the publisher. A publisher is simply a useful middle-man. It is not for him to anticipate the verdict of criticism.
Because I'm a former critic, I view criticism differently than most do. I can take criticism, but if you're going to eviscerate us, be specific.
If you are going to do anything, you must expect criticism. But it's better to be a doer than a critic. The doer moves; the critic stands still, and is passed by.
Ralph Ellison's essays were models for me when I began my life as a critic. Slipping cultural yokes and violating aesthetic boundaries, he made criticism high-stakes work, especially for a black critic.
I was the first critic ever to win a Tony - for co-authoring 'Elaine Stritch at Liberty.' Criticism is a life without risk; the critic is risking his opinion, the maker is risking his life. It's a humbling thought but important for the critic to keep it in mind - a thought he can only know if he's made something himself.
God makes all things good; Man meddles with 'em and they become evil.
I still think like a critic, and I still analyze films like a critic. However, it's not possible to write criticism if you're making films.
The man without a chin, no stamina, dead man, broken man, whatever. On your way to the top, you always get some criticism. Criticism is a great motivation. Failure is not an option to me.
Criticism will need an injection of humility that is, a recognition of its role as ancillary to the arts, needed only occasionally in a temporary capacity. Since the critic exists only for introducing and explaining, he must be readily intelligible; he has no special vocabulary: criticism is in no way a science or a system.
I myself think that the wise man meddles little or not at all in affairs and does his own things.
The revolt of the poet is invariably conservative at its roots. … Not politically conservative, but imaginatively conservative, with a profound regard for what is given, as earth or air, sun or moon or stars, or the dreams of man.
One criticism that I hear occassionally is that I am actually not a real liberal, and I am secretly a conservative. Or sometimes they will say I am the only thing worse than a conservative - a dreaded 'right-winger.'
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