Atrue critic oughtto dwell rather uponexcellenciesthan imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

-Addison,Joseph
  In The Spectator, no.291, 2 Feb.

A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure foradmiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.

-Bagehot,Walter
  The English Constitution, ch.4,'The House of Lords'.

The critic who justly admires all kinds of things simultaneously cannot love any one of them.

-Beerbohm, Sir (Henry) Max(imilian)
  'George Moore', in the Saturday Review, c.1912.

I will try to account for the degree of my aesthetic emotion. That, I conceive, is the function of the critic.

-Bell, (Arthur) Clive Howard
  Art, pt.3, ch.3.

My girls suffered during this month or so, so did my seminars & lectures & my poetry even. To be a critic, ah, how deeper and more scientific.

-Berryman,John originally John Allyn Smith
  'Olympus'.

Painting, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

-Bierce, Ambrose Gwinett
  The Cynic's Word Book. Retitled  The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

A good writer isnot, per se, a good bookcritic.No more so than a good drunk is automaticallya good bartender.

-Bishop,Jim
  In the NewYork Journal- American, 26 Nov.

The post-war period has not been marked bya great aesthetic debate about the novel comparable to that of the earlier half of the century, in part because the role of the writer and critic divided, the writer going off to the marketplace and the critic to the university (which eventually turned out to be much the same thing).

-Bradbury, Malcolm Stanley
  The Modern British Novel, preface.

He was in logic a great critic, Profoundly skilled in analytic. He could distinguish and divide A hair 'twixt south and southwest side.

-Butler, Samuel
  Hudibras, pt.1, canto1, l.65^8.

Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part, Nature in him was almost lost in Art.

-Collins,William
  'Verses addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer'.

Le ro" l e d'un auteur est un ro"  le assez vain; c'est celui d'un homme qui se croit en e¤  tat de donner des le c° ons au public. Et le ro"  le du critique? Il est bien plus vain encore; c'est celui d'un homme qui se croit en e¤  tat de donner des le c° ons a'   celui qui se croit en e¤  tat d'en donner au public. Therole oftheauthor isvain enough; it isthat of a person who considers himself able to give lessons to the public. And the role of the critic? It is vainer still; it is that of a person who considers himself able to give lessons to he who considers himself able to give them to the public.

-Diderot, Denis
  Discours sur la poe¤  sie dramatique.

On fait de la critique quand on ne peut pas faire de l'art, de me"  me qu'on se met mouchard quand on ne peut pas e"  tre soldat. Someone is a critic when he cannot be an artist in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

-Flaubert, Gustave
  Letter to Mme Louise Colet, 22 Oct.

Le bon critique est celui qui raconte les aventures de son a"  me au milieu des chefs-d'oeuvres. The good critic is one who recognizes the adventures of his own soul in great works of art.

-Thibault
  La Vie litte¤  raire, pre¤  face.

For every good art critic there may be ten great artists.

-Greenberg, Clement
  In the NewYork Times, 3 Oct.

What is a modern poet's fate? To write his thoughts upon a slate; The critic spits on what is done, Gives it a wipeöand all isgone.

-Honorius of Autun
'A  Joke'. Collected in Hallam Tennyson  Alfred Lord Tennyson (1897), vol.2, ch.3.

Il faut que la critique attaque la forme, jamais le fond de vos ide¤  es, de vos phrases. Arrangez-vous. A critic must attack the form, never the foundation of your ideas and phrases. See to it.

-Lautre¤  amont, Comte de properly Isidore Ducasse
  Poe¤  sies, pt.1.

I won't quit until I get run over by a truck, a producer or a critic.

-Lemmon,Jack (John Uhler)
  In Newsweek, 5 May.

The dramatic critic who is without prejudice is on the plane with the general who does not believe in taking human life.

-Nathan, GeorgeJean
Attributed.

Gilbert had a baddish streak or two in him; and one in particular whichwas not only baddish but so thoroughly caddish that no critic can ignore or, in my view, extenuate it. The man, to summarize, was essentially cruel, and delighted in cruelty.

-Quiller-Couch, SirArthurThomas known as  'Q'
  Of W S Gilbert. Studies in Literature, 3rd series,'Lecture on W.S. Gilbert', no.4.

A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.

-Tynan, Kenneth
  In the NewYorkTimes Magazine, 9 Jan.