"Criticise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to our ministry to each other.—I have often thought that we do not often enough wash one another's feet. We are conscious of the imperfections which mar the characters of those around us. We are content to note, criticise, and learn them. We dare not attempt to remove them. This failure arises partly because we do not love with a love like Christ's—a love which will brave resentment, annoyance, rebuke, in its quest,—and partly because we are not willing to ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... even of meteorological processes, etc.) around which legendary and historical material can grow. As has been shown by two fairy tales and as I could have abundantly shown from countless others, the psychoanalytic and the anagogic interpretations are possible alongside of the scientific. [We can criticise Hitchcock for having in his explanations of fairy tales considered them only in their most developed form, and not bothered about their origin and archaic forms. And as a matter of fact the more developed forms permit ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... not to see pictures—that is generally impossible—but to see and be seen of men), but few had any suspicion that this strange man, with the shabby, old-fashioned apparel, and expression half nervous, half defiant, was the painter whose pictures they were pretending to criticise. ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... paragraphs, so as to exhibit under some general head the bearing of the whole. The selector, in this respect, can only say, he has done his best; and those who are most competent to appreciate difficulty, will be least inclined to criticise failure. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... day to see the use of this reconnoitring, but at Ladysmith everything was equally mysterious and perplexing. It was perhaps that my knowledge of military matters was too limited to understand the subtle manoeuvres of those days. But I have made up my mind not to criticise our leader's military strategy, though I must say at this juncture that the whole siege of Ladysmith and the manner in which the besieged garrison was ineffectually pounded at with our big guns for several months, seem to me an unfathomable mystery, which, owing to Joubert's untimely death, will ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... arch-enemy of criticism, that "blame is much more useful to the artist than praise," and that "the musician who goes to destruction because he is faulted, deserves destruction." He must stop the contention that only a musician is entitled to criticise a musician, and without abating one jot of his requirements as to knowledge, sympathy, liberality, broad-mindedness, candor, and incorruptibility on the part of the critic, he must quit the foolish claim that to pronounce ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... hard to predicate from them in what station of life she had been brought up. She certainly adapted herself well to whatever society she happened to be with; neither patricians nor plebeians found any thing to criticise; but, whether this were the result of tact, or owing merely to the adoption of a negative standard, no one could say. In language she was uniformly correct, without seeming at all scholastic; she occasionally used the idioms and dialectic peculiarities of those around ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... mildly, "you are not choosing a husband; you are choosing a career. To criticise his investments might be bad taste; to be able to extract what amusement you can out of Howard is a direct mercy from Heaven. Otherwise ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... motives impugned? Are not persecution, and even martyrdom, often their portion? Now all this is the result of sin. Those who call into question the deeds and motives of God's saints; those who upbraid, and criticise, and impute evil to the sincere, faithful servants of God, inflicting upon them dire evils, are but showing the effects of sin in themselves, are but giving exercise to the evil that rules within them. Their particular acts and words may be without present malice, they may be inwardly ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... Warricombe stepped into the circle irradiated by Bruno Chilvers; her husband and Sidwell pressed after. Buckland, with an exclamation of disgust, went off to criticise the hero among a ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... followed him in his raillery; but she caught his meaning. 'I know I ought to apologise for presuming to criticise you,' she said; 'but I was thinking with sorrow of the ill-will that has lately come among us at Barchester, and I spoke more freely than ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... by deductive nor inductive reasoning can we add a tittle to our implicit knowledge." (Jevons.) Explain and criticise. [S] ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... fallacious, heretical. You perceive I am not sparing myself in these admissions," he interposed, "but I have been doing some serious thinking during my return voyage, and now I am going to read that book again; not to criticise, but to get at its true inwardness ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... restaurant car of which we are sole occupants. The car is made for two tables, each for four people, and a man and a boy, both very neatly dressed, cook and serve, so you see the line is not yet overrun, and it is still cheap, and comfortable. If I might be so bold as to criticise what you, my Elder Brother, may be responsible for, I'd suggest that the place to sleep on might be made a shade softer.—Yes, we are becoming effeminate, I know—we were becoming so alas, as far ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... may now ask, What, then, is your idea of evolution? It certainly is easier to criticise than to do constructive work. An honest study of nature, however, inevitably leads us to the conclusion that the final solution of the problem is still far distant. Many a stone has already been quarried for the future edifice of evolution by unwearied research during the ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... the place, nor have I the space to criticise the various special theories of descent. One, however, must receive particular notice. According to Ameghino, the South American monkeys (Pitheculites) from the oldest Tertiary of the Pampas are the forms from which have arisen ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... Grog! And Her Highness herself may be thought a cleverer sketch of youthful femininity than even the Hellenic Helen. It is hard to judge the play now. Custom has worn its freshness and made it too familiar: we know it too well to criticise it clearly. Besides, the actors have now overlaid the action with over-much "business." But in spite of these difficulties the merits of the piece are sufficiently obvious: its constructive skill can be remarked; the first act, for example, is one of the best bits of exposition ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... at him. What right had he to criticise my manner of speech? He started to leave the room, after a perfunctory scramble to put his papers in order, but she broke off in the middle of a sentence to urge him to remain. She announced that she was calling ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... she returned loftily, "that if anyone has a right to complain of your costume, it is I. Know, therefore, monsieur le voyageur, that if I accept a man's arm, he is forthwith above the laws of fashion, nobody would venture to criticise him. You do not know the world, I see; I like you ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... young as he grew old, and it was his desire to bid farewell to earth with his eyes resting upon the Shakespeare that so constantly lay open before him. Nothing excited his indignation more than to hear little people of great pretension carpingly criticise the man of whom he makes Southey, in a discussion with Porson, declare, that "all the faults that ever were committed in poetry would be but as air to earth, if we could weigh them against one single thought or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... ones full of invited guests, brought up the rear. When a start was made, the little police force hustled vehicles out of the way and even stopped tram-cars when necessary; while the band tortured selections from Handel and Beethoven to the intense delight of passers-by, many of whom paused to criticise shortcomings in the procession among themselves. In about an hour it reached its destination, where Kumodini Babu's uncle received the guests. The family barber carried Samarendra in his arms to a chair which ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... in the little hunchback. "You are here, it seems, to frustrate our intentions; but I'm hanged if you shall criticise them too. Guard, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is more imposing on paper. There is something more impressive in it; I shall be better able to criticise myself and improve my style. Besides, I shall perhaps obtain actual relief from writing. Today, for instance, I am particularly oppressed by one memory of a distant past. It came back vividly to my mind a few days ago, and has remained haunting me like an annoying tune that one cannot get ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... then proceeded to criticise a statement commonly found in text books, that chemical combination suppresses altogether the properties of the combining bodies. The reverse of this statement is probably true. To take the case commonly given of the combination ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... It was only in respect to extraordinary taxes—"subsidies" and "tenths and fifteenths"—that Parliament was in a position effectually to make or mar the fiscal fortunes of the Government; except that, of course, it was always open to Parliament to criticise the financial expedients of the crown, such as the sale of monopolies, the levy of "impositions," and the collection of benevolences, and to influence, if it could, the policy pursued in relation ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... what Jock said when he walked with us to the elevator was pretty nearly right. You know he said we were criticising their copy the way a plumber would criticise the Parthenon—so busy finding fault with the lack of drains that we failed to see the ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... and impede Austria. First of all things, it is necessary for me to get rid of those newspaper editors and scribblers; they are arrogant, insolent fellows who imagine they know every thing and are able to criticise every thing, and who feel called upon to give their opinion about all things and on all occasions because they know how to wield a goose-quill. The best thing we could do would be to suppress all newspapers ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... Imagist at times, presenting his mood or picture with a Flaubertian precision of epithet that even Amy Lowell could not criticise. Consider, for example, his ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... understood, applauded? But yourself, YOU, great George Sand, you confess your solitude. Is there at this time, I don't say, admiration or sympathy, but the appearance of a little attention to works of art? Who is the critic who reads the book that he has to criticise? In ten years they won't know, perhaps, how to make a pair of shoes, they are becoming so frightfully stupid! All that is to tell you that, until better times (in which I do not believe), I shall keep Saint-Antoine in the bottom ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... the well-belaboured eighteenth century—when much was done of which the nineteenth talks, and massive books were written that we are content to criticise—we have the inevitable denunciations of scepticism, materialism, argumentation, logic; the quotation, (referred to a motto "in the Swiss gardens"), "Speech is silvern, silence is golden," and a loud assertion that all great things ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... says he will not attempt to do so by latitude and longitude, for that is a system of which the Latins have learned nothing. He himself, whilst still somewhat burdened by the authoritative dicta of "saints and sages" of past times, ventures at least to criticise some of the latter, such as Pliny and Ptolemy, and declares his intention to have recourse to the information of those who have travelled most extensively over the Earth's surface. And judging from the good use he makes, in his ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... antagonistic to the institutions of this country. Every apostle is directed by the law-breaking church monarch. Every apostle teaches by example and precept to the Mormon people that this church monarch is a prophet of God, to offend or criticise whom is a sin in the sight of the Almighty. Every apostle helps to appoint to office and sustain the seven presidents of seventies, who are below them in dignity, and they are directly responsible for them and their ...
— Conditions in Utah - Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United States • Thomas Kearns
... Disraeli's own words, used in another sense, the keynote of Lothair is "mockery blended with Ionian splendour." Never had he mocked so dauntlessly, never had his fancy been more exuberant, and those who criticise the magnificence must realise that it was intentional. It was thus that Disraeli loved to see life, and, most of all, the life he laughed at. He had always been gorgeous, but he let himself go in ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... thought for the sake of experience, the philosopher must transcend experience for the sake of thought. As the poet sees all, and all in each, so the philosopher, knowing each, must think all consistently together, and then know each again. It is the part of philosophy to collect and criticise evidence, to formulate and coordinate conceptions, and finally to define in exact terms. The reanimation of the structure of thought is accomplished primarily in religion, which is a general conception of the world made the basis ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... however, the prospect of the young people coming together was not encouraging. Martha was somewhat given to flirtation. George was as jealous as ever, and was unable to conceal his feelings, which, as he had now no right to criticise her conduct, so angered the girl that she not unfrequently gave encouragement to others solely to show her indifference ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... soul have been faithful; never an alien pleasure Lured me away from the light lit in your luminous eyes, But we have altered the World as pitiful man has leisure To criticise, balance, take ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... am so tired of being tied to a book,' he said passionately. 'Tied? I am a book. Everyone I meet sees in me, not a man to be judged and liked for himself, but something to criticise and flatter and compare with the nature he ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... and mean," not only because he had been drunk, but because he had taken advantage of the young girl's position to abuse her fiance in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner? Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So there must be something in him. The lodgings? ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... It is easy to criticise the naive intellectualism of such a view as this, which ignores or thrusts into the background the economic causes of advance and retrogression. But it is certainly not an unhistorical view. Burke dreaded fundamental discussions which "turn men's duties into doubts." ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... negation of the reason is what those Italians who do not scruple to practise it denominate Rationalism. And this very unwarrantable use of a word is in fact only a particular case of a general phenomenon. To criticise, means to examine the thoughts which present themselves to the mind in order to distinguish error from truth. The Frenchmen, who call themselves the critics, are men who require that the intellect shall make itself the impartial mirror of ideas, but shall renounce the while all discrimination ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the front pair of wheels could be deflected at will, but only very slightly, and they afterwards found that in a hundred yards they could only turn their ship four yards from her course. But let not captains of comfortable battleships, or owners even of yachts, criticise too harshly a man who was not of their time and who knew not modern contrivances; it should be remembered also that Shard was no longer at sea. His steering may have been clumsy but he did ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... old time base ball star.—"I did not think it possible for one to become so interested in a book on base ball. I do not find anything in it which I can criticise." ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... people were in the act of warping her across the basin to still another berth, where she was to receive her ballast; thus when my eyes first rested upon her she was floating high out of the water, and I was afforded an excellent opportunity to view and criticise her lines. She was somewhat shallow of hull and flat in the floor, to give her a light draught of water, but to compensate for this she was extraordinarily "beamy," which had the twofold effect of imparting great stiffness under canvas, and affording ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... think that I am laying down the law," he said. "I have been out so little, the last few years, that I ought not, perhaps, to criticise. Lady Cynthia, however, seems to me to belong to the extreme section of the younger generation, the section who have a sort of craze for the unusual, whose taste in art and living is distorted and bizarre. You know what I mean, don't you—black drawing-rooms, futurist wall-papers, opium dens and ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were innocent; but it appears to me you have not forgotten our father's wish—that you look upon me as a usurper, who has robbed you of your throne. You act as if you had the right to measure and criticise all my undertakings, and to make yourself a judge over me. I undertook this war with the conviction of my right and my royal duty. You dared to protest against it. You dared, in the presence of my generals, to speak of your claims and the claims ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... for organisation she seems almost unequalled. Her picnics are models for all future and past picnics; her combinations of feelings, of conversation, of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and lifelike that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us—the scene carries us away, and we forget to look for the art by which it is recorded. Her machinery is simple but complete; events group themselves so vividly and naturally in her mind that, in describing imaginary ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... most opposite subjects, without ever forgetting his own identity or losing faith in his system." There were, however, in the case of M. Sainte-Beuve, further impediments to the assumption of an explicit and confident tone. Among the authors whom he was called upon to criticise were his acknowledged leaders, those by whom he had been initiated into the mysteries of modern art. Though he was fast outgrowing their influence, he was in no haste to proclaim his independence. An indefatigable student, he was accumulating stores of material without as yet drawing upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... sweet-smelling drops or sugar-coated pills of varying hue and form—the result would doubtless he as satisfactory in one case as in the other. Since she had not demanded it as an inalienable right he gave her an opportunity to criticise and select, which she accepted by no means unwillingly. As a rule, the designs were, in her opinion, too elaborate and obtrusive. There were too many mouldings, there was too much carving, and too evident a ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... learned from their courteous hosts, and felt inclined to sympathize with the Southern people, for the negro is not counted as a Southerner, except to fix the basis of congressional representation. There might of course be things to criticise here and there, certain customs for which they did not exactly see the necessity, and which seemed in conflict with the highest ideals of liberty but surely these courteous, soft-spoken ladies and gentlemen, entirely ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... good humour he would talk of his own writings with a wonderful frankness and candour, and would even criticise them with the closest severity. One day, having read over one of his Ramblers, Mr. Langton asked him, how he liked that paper; he shook his head, and answered, "too wordy." At another time, when one was reading his tragedy of Irene to a company at a house in ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... of the rest of you have done as much for this town as Honer'ble Bickford," broke in the president, testily, "you can have the right to criticise. As it is, I can't see anything but jealousy in it. And I've heard enough of it. Now, to make this thing all pleasant and agreeable to the Honer'ble Bickford, we've got to have Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look act as judges with him. 'Tis ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Olivia's letters—I am sorry I sent them to you; for I see that they have lowered, instead of raising her in your opinion. But if you criticise letters, written in openness and confidence of heart to a private friend, as if they were set before the tribunal of the public, you are—may I say it?—not only severe, but unjust; for you try and condemn the subjects of one country by the laws ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... of every Scot—secured to him by the Treaty of Union and confirmed by the Disruption—to criticise his minister with much freedom, but this privilege is exercised with a delicate charity. When it is not possible for a conscientious hearer to approve a sermon, he is not compelled to condemnation. "There ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... much of anything, papa," she replied, "but I'm hungry for a little petting and a chance to hug and kiss my dear father; without anybody by to criticise," she concluded, with a low, ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... to criticise your taste in the only thing in which it is, in my opinion, reprehensible. You know I ought to know something of my own trade. Of pathos, sentiment, and point, you are a complete judge; but there is a quality more necessary than either in a song, and ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... affects to criticise Germany for not having "entrusted the security of her western frontier to the public opinion of Western Europe and to America and fought Russia, if attacked, with her rear not otherwise defended," ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... in addressing your Northern friends, is in perfect keeping with your apparent estimation of them. Though I should be the last, perhaps, to criticise mere style, I could not but be struck with the extremely simple manner of your letter. You seem to have thought you were writing a tract for benighted heathen, and telling wonders never before suggested to their imagination, and so far above their ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... with a face that remained serene as far at least as her husband and her children ever saw. Nor did she allow the whole weight of trials to taint the sweetness of her spirit or to dim her faith in God. Devoted to her husband, she refused to allow herself to criticise his business ability or methods. The failure, which she could not but admit, was not his fault; it was the fault of those debtors who declined ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... was casual; her manner had a quality somewhat aggressively democratic. It said that under her welcome lay the right to criticise, which she would have exercised with equal freedom had her visitor been the Lord Bishop John Calcutta himself; and it made short work of the idea that she might be over-gratified to receive Holy Orders in any form. She was not ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... reception at the hands of many of its reviewers. The Saturday Review was furious. "When a writer," it exclaimed, "who has not given as many weeks to the subject as Mr. Darwin has given years, is not content to air his own crude though clever fallacies, but assumes to criticise Mr. Darwin with the superciliousness of a young schoolmaster looking over a boy's theme, it is difficult not to take him more seriously than he deserves or perhaps desires. One would think that Mr. Butler was the travelled and laborious observer ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... the mean and frowsy room, and shuddered. Yet what could he do? What right had he to interfere, to criticise, to ameliorate? ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... literature as a safety-valve or time-passer, giving to the world the result of tired brain and over-wrought nerves; consequently, I sacrificed inclination to necessity, and have left my muse alone. However,"—and he was once more the worldling,—"I have reserved to myself the right to criticise; and when I see a young man of talent enter the field of letters, I conclude he is like a man about to marry, either a great hero ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... necessary then seriously to criticise such abuses of language? Yes, for very seriously are they put forth in our books and journals. Nor can we flatter ourselves that they are the careless expressions of uneducated writers, ignorant even of the terms ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... agreement with Onions Winter, and he produced it with a shamed countenance. He knew that Mark Snyder would criticise it. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... have acted in a thoroughly capable and praiseworthy manner. The only point in your conduct which I would permit myself to criticise is your omission to slay the kid. That, however, was due, I take it, to the fact that you were interrupted. We will now proceed to examine the future. I cannot see that it is altogether murky. You have ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... circumstance crystallised and rendered immune from the necessity for self-search and spiritual struggle incidental to his neighbours. Since he was a man neither below nor above the average, it did not occur to him to criticise or place himself in opposition to a system which had gone on so long and was about to do him so much good. Like all average men, he was a believer in authority, and none the less because authority placed a large ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "Doubtless you are in the right, Mr. Allonby," he said; "though, as you were of course going on to remark, you express yourself somewhat obscurely. Your meaning, I take it, is that I mayn't criticise the doings, of my guests? I stand corrected, and concede Sir Gresley acted with commendable moderation, and that Cambridge is, beyond question, the paramount ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... my eyes, and wished our bank might break before morning! Whether the "bit of sea" came up to expectations or not I know not. I was in no condition to criticise even my own movements. I believe that as time went on I became gradually amalgamated with the larger roiling heap of fellow-sufferers on the floor, and during the last hour or so of our misery rolled in concert with them. ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... it down that Alexander was a poltroon; a phthisicky professor, holding at every word a bottle of sal volatile to his nose, lectures on strength. Fellows who faint at the veriest trifle criticise the tactics of Hannibal; whimpering boys store themselves with phrases out of the slaughter at Canna; and blubber over the victories of Scipio, because they are obliged to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... they like," Ruth laughed. "That is mere jealousy, and anybody can criticise. To me you are the greatest ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... would not be flippant when he is gravely told that the Greeks had no art-critics? I can understand it being said that the constructive genius of the Greeks lost itself in criticism, but not that the race to whom we owe the critical spirit did not criticise. You will not ask me to give you a survey of Greek art criticism from Plato to Plotinus. The night is too lovely for that, and the moon, if she heard us, would put more ashes on her face than are there already. ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... about it, be sure. He saw me in a hobble—I lost everything, all at once—and he went to work like a brick to get money for me. And that, when he felt more disposed to poison himself than to paint. Do you think I should criticise the work he ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... has confessed, in a new Preface, that this is "one of the most ambitious and least satisfactory" of his books; and explains that it was written against time, when he was on the verge of a serious illness. It is superfluous, therefore, to criticise it in detail, but one or two points in relation to the sociological ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... speaking is to get on good terms with your audience, and I claim that the best way to do this is to show them the human side of yourself. Some of your hearers are agin you; they have come out to criticise you. You disarm them at once by treating yourself as a joke. Of course you must suit your tactics to your audience. The tie remark will put me on good terms with a rural audience, but it would fail in a lecture to teachers in the ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... people in the church; the one is made up of those who do the hard work of the church, and the other of those who sit at home and—criticise. ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... I beg to remind you, Horsham, that from the first I've reserved myself liberty to criticise fundamental points ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... What an idea! Mais j'ai mon franc parler. I occasionally allow myself to criticise, but ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... his chief were certainly more rapid than those of Sickles on Saturday, and no one has undertaken to criticise the latter. Nor would Lee be lightly accused of tardiness for not attacking Sedgwick in force until Monday at six P.M., as will shortly be detailed, when he had despatched his advance towards him shortly after noon on Sunday, and had but a half-dozen ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... on in the little cabin across the arroyo, a reproduction of an old, old drama. Should we, after all, criticise these two descendants of the first sweet human woman of the world? Consider; to their young and inexperienced eyes appealed all the fascinations of this august but tempting object, new, strange, appealing. For a time their hearts were strong, upon their ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Australian, was established by Mr. Wentworth and Dr. Wardell. A second of the same kind soon followed, and was called the Monitor. These papers found it to their advantage, during the unpopularity of Darling, to criticise severely the acts of that Governor, who was defended by the Gazette with intemperate zeal. This altercation had lasted for some time, when, in the third year of Darling's administration, a very small event was sufficient to set the ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... human race, nor a love for each individual of it, but a love for the race, or for the ideal of man, in each individual. In other and less pedantic words, he who is truly humane considers every human being as such interesting and important, and without waiting to criticise each individual specimen, pays in advance to all alike the tribute of good wishes and sympathy. Now this favourable presumption with regard to human beings is not a causeless prepossession, it is no idle superstition of ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... those who have not travelled, and who have no means of knowing the value of what they say, that are privileged to criticise?" ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... of Perugino is still solid and beautiful, immutably serene. It radiates peace and strength. I neither criticise nor admire; my attitude is much more nearly that of worship, not of Perugino's images, but of a far-away ineffable mystery, which he in his time humbly sought to make a little more symbolically visible to men than any that came before him. For here ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... to account to you for what I say or do? Let me tell you I allow no one to criticise my actions—no, not folks of far more consequence than you. I shall think of you as I choose to think of you. Others may say you're an honest man, but I look upon you as a brigand, and that's all about it. You seem anxious to hear my opinion, so here ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... troubles in business organizations the personal equation entered into it. Certain of the directors were inclined to criticise other directors and to be somewhat dictatory as to how the farmers' business should be conducted. With the idea of improving the system of management, the directors at this stage abolished the Board of Control and the President was made Managing-Director ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... hint things went along better in the engine room. When Hal Hastings came in to inspect he found nothing to criticise. ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... literary defence, if I may so term it, my article would have been as ephemeral as the mood which induced its composition. I make full admission of Rossetti's claims to the purest kind of literary renown, and if I were to criticise his poems now, I should write very differently. But nothing will shake my conviction that the cruelty, the unfairness, the pusillanimity has been on the other side, not on mine. The amende of my Dedication in God ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... his thoughts and worshipped him, had chosen her husband herself, and, being of German family, had not been married after the French manner; still, she did not criticise it, as she thought it was perhaps adapted to the French people, and she had seen among her intimate acquaintances many happy marriages entered into for reasons of convenience. They had two children, a son, Ary, who died in 1900 after having made a name for himself as a painter, and written ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... "It was too late," he said, "to criticise the evidence, and the Court had neither the right nor the power to alter or review it. If," he added, "you have any reason to give why, either upon technical or moral grounds, the sentence should not be passed upon you, we will ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... wary youth replied In truth, fair lady, I could ne'er decide, To criticise what others round may do.— 'Tis not the line I'd willingly pursue; And I will freely say, that your discourse Has much surprised me, though 'tis void of force. To you it surely never can belong, To say variety in love is wrong; Besides, your sex, and decency, 'tis clear, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... is, as one might say, the guest of a country, it does not become him to criticise that country. I have studied this strange people with interest, and often with astonishment, and if I now set down some of the differences between the English and the French, I trust that no note of criticism ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... it is asked. I believe the engineer employed by me to examine into the condition of my vessels is quite competent to judge in these matters, and I have unbounded confidence in him. When I placed you in command of the 'Nancy,' I meant you to navigate, not to criticise her; but if you are ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... "remains a difficulty for us as well as for the Greeks of the fourth century before Christ, and is the stumbling-block of Kant's Critic, and of the Hamiltonian adaptation of Kant as well as of the Platonic ideas. It has been said that 'you cannot criticise Revelation.' 'Then how do you know what is Revelation, or that there is one at all?' is the immediate rejoinder. 'You know nothing of things in themselves.'—'Then how do you know that there are things in themselves?' In some ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... for his offences as the erring or unsuccessful monarch. It must be difficult for a great classicist to be at the same time a believer in the divine right of kings; and it was a new idea for the mediaeval Scot accustomed to reverence the name, but to criticise in the sharpest practical way the acts of his sovereign. And we may imagine that the old scholar, who could not but hear from his window the shouts of the warfare between the Queen's party and the King's, would have a grim satisfaction as he sat high above them, protected more or ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... had the hardy nerve To criticise our depredations As unadapted to preserve The perfect comity of nations; No High Commissioner would doubt If brigandage was quite judicial; Indeed we mostly did without ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... Hart could bear. The manager of the King's House was forced into profanity. "Damn your sympathy," exclaimed he; and few would criticise him for it. He apologized as quickly, however, and turned to Nell. "There goes your scene, Nell. I'll buy your oranges, when you come off," he continued to plead, in desperation, scarcely less fearful of offending her than of offending ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... ill become me to criticise the style and method of our entertainment," put in the Professor, acidly, "otherwise I might be tempted to observe that it scarcely showed that regard for economy which I ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... John Bowring; and I would treat Sir John Bowring as I would treat Lord Canning. Do not let us have in the service of the State low-caste men who may be trampled upon at pleasure, and high-caste men whom nobody dare criticise. ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... of indignation, and uttered his views too freely. His fellow-grooms cautioned him; but his spirit was up, and he gave way to his feelings without restraint. Now, to laugh at the king's weaknesses, his gluttony or follies, was one thing; to criticise his military conduct was another. The one was merely badinage, and the king himself might have laughed had he heard it; the other was treason, and, moreover, likely to touch the monarch on the delicate matter of ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... thought and language, and there was no branch of speculative literature which he had not mastered. By adopting the form of dialogue, in which all his extant works have come down to us, he was enabled to criticise the various systems of philosophy then current in Greece, and also to gratify his own dramatic genius, and his almost unrivaled power of keeping up an assumed character. The works of Plato have been divided into three classes: ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... TO CRITICISE THE SUGGESTION.—The worker is expected to follow the suggestion of Scientific Management without delay, because he believes in the standardization on which it is made, and in the management that makes it. But the Systems afford him an opportunity of reviewing the reasonableness of the ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... of firearms in the world," is the unanimous verdict of the gun experts of the Colt, Remington and Winchester plants, whose business it is to study and criticise every development ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... minutes during the remainder of the afternoon Morris visited the safe and inspected the diamonds until Abe was moved to criticise his ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... mail just as well. I guarantee success in every case, or return the money. I send lessons, instructions, criticise and correct all exercises, until you can write 100 words a minute, for $10, payable ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... they act as if we were babies gurgling in cunning little cribs. And the rude way they interrupt us often and go on talking about their own affairs—well, I will not say more, for dear mamma has taught me not to criticise my elders, and I never do. But I watch them pretty closely, just the same, and when I see them doing something that is not right my brain works so hard it keeps me awake nights. If it's anything very dreadful, like Peggy's going and getting engaged, I point out the error, the way they're always ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Flint refuses to criticise, because he too nearly agrees with him, is Renouvier. Taking this avowal in conjunction with two or three indiscretions on other pages, we can make a guess, not at the system itself, which is to console us ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... reported to have repressed his thoughts of an ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated with new diligence his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some danger of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some who thought themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but, finding other judges more favourable, he did not suffer himself to sink into despondence. He easily discovered that the only stage on which a poet could appear with any hope of advantage was London; a place too wide for the operation ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... truth. You daren't say a word of criticism about Ireland for fear you'd have the people jumpin' down your throat—an' that's a sign of weakness, Henry. Do you know why the English are as strong as they are? It's because they'll let you criticise them as much as you like, an' never lose their temper with you. The only time I ever knew them to be flabby and spineless was when the Boer War was on ... an' they'd scream in your face if you didn't say they were actin' like angels. They were only like that then, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... traveller. For instance, he must avoid luxury, as says Seneca; and laziness, as say Horace and Ovid; he must be reticent about his wealth and learning and keep his counsel, like Ulysses. He must observe the morals and religion of others, but not criticise them, for different nations have different religions, and think that their fathers' gods ought to be served diligently. He that disregards these things acts with pious zeal but without consideration for ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... Why, as to that Boston singer,—an' by the way, they say Ellen Wilson's goin' to take lessons of her this winter,—she kind o' bewildered me, Lyddy! Of course, I ain't never been to any cities, so I don't feel altogether free to criticise; but what did you think of her, when she run up so high there, one time? I don't know how high she went, but I guess there wa'n't ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... not whether they can be justified by these tests but that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the professors of the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not the conclusions of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most violent efforts are made—with a sense of complete righteousness—to prohibit their discussion. That fury about sexual things is only to be explained on the hypothesis that the Christian ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... favour. At this time there was an agitation for Parliamentary reform, and the better representation of the working classes; and it was on this topic that the letters were begun, though the writer went on to criticise the various social ideals then popular, and to propose his own. He had already done something of the sort in "Unto this Last"; but "Time and Tide" is much more complete, and the result of seven years' further thought and experience. His "Fors Clavigera" is a continuation of these letters, but ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... moment out of depths of dulness may suddenly rise a whirlwind, which he is expected forthwith to ride. Especially in connection with Bill like this now before Committee, Chairman is in state of tension from time he takes Chair till he leaves. Don't forget all this when you criticise MELLOR, still new to place. He's a good fellow, and a shrewd one; but has, among other difficulties, to fight against proneness to good-nature. Good-nature out of place in the Chair. COURTNEY knew ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... but you are illogical. You acknowledge that this is a subject about which you know nothing, yet almost in the same breath you criticise and condemn. Men blame women for having no sense of justice, but they are just as bad. They are worse, and with less excuse. Women's perceptions are so keen that they see every side of a situation, so it happens sometimes ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... night you betrayed yourself into the committal of a serious imprudence, namely that of presuming to criticise unfavourably certain acts of our Lord the Inca, which, as you are surely aware, is a crime punishable with death. Do you ask how I happen to know this? I will tell you. It chanced that I was kept late from my bed last night by certain business connected with the approaching ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... could not criticise the style, but it affected her as something unclean; Hubert's very name suffered degradation when used in such a way. Prepared for worse things than that which she saw, no shock of feelings was manifest in her. She returned the paper ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... several occasions, and as he grew older this was one of his favourite spots for sketching. He would start off alone, or with John (Thomas?) or Charles, and remain till I fetched him in the afternoon. I would then criticise his work, and make him correct defects before we left the spot. Sometimes he would sketch in one field, sometimes in the other, but generally in the one beyond the old oak we see there, as it was more ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... been so volubly talking she had also been busily thinking. She knew that if Alfred were a fool his mother was not—at least, not in the way she meant. There had been no love lost between the ladies, so that Mrs. Dagon was disposed to criticise the other's conduct very closely. She saw, therefore, that if Alfred Dinks were not rich—and it certainly was a question whether he were so really, or only in expectation from Mr. Burt—then also he might ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... good sign in him or no. He set himself now and then to find fault with the sermon, but the preacher was so humble, so respectful, and above all, so earnest, that Donald Ross could not bring himself to criticise. ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... construction is not to be too severely blamed, since it is a question of pavilions which are to disappear after an existence of six months. Economical reasons are always worthy of respect, and the modesty of the Municipal Council on this occasion ought to be praised. But what one has a right to criticise is the unhappy idea which placed these pavilions in such a manner as to completely obstruct the view of the exterior porticos of the palaces and industrial sections when one stands before the central dome in the centre of the garden. ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... readers whom Orme and Mill have repelled. The materials placed at the disposal of Sir John Malcolm by the late Lord Powis were indeed of great value. But we cannot say that they have been very skilfully worked up. It would, however, be unjust to criticise with severity a work which, if the author had lived to complete and revise it, would probably have been improved by condensation and by a better arrangement. We are more disposed to perform the pleasing duty of expressing ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
