“A good critic is the sorcerer who makes some hidden spring gush forth unexpectedly under our feet.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A good critic is the sorcerer who makes some hidden spring gush forth unexpectedly under our feet." by Francois Mauriac?
Francois Mauriac photo
Francois Mauriac 38
French author 1885–1970

Related quotes

Karen Marie Moning photo
Ho Chi Minh photo
Charles A. Beard photo

“It is always becoming something else and those who criticize it and the acts done under it, as well as those who praise, help to make it what it will be tomorrow.”

Charles A. Beard (1874–1948) American historian

The American Leviathan: The Republic in the Machine Age (1931) co-written with William Beard, p. 39
Context: If this statement by Judge Cooley is true, and the authority for it is unimpeachable, then the theory that the Constitution is a written document is a legal fiction. The idea that it can be understood by a study of its language and the history of its past development is equally mythical. It is what the Government and the people who count in public affairs recognize and respect as such, what they think it is. More than this. It is not merely what it has been, or what it is today. It is always becoming something else and those who criticize it and the acts done under it, as well as those who praise, help to make it what it will be tomorrow.

Cornelius Castoriadis photo

“Where Ego is, Id must spring forth.”

Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) Greek-French philosopher

Wo Ich bin, soll Es auftauchen.
Source: The Imaginary Institution of Society (1975), p. 104.

Edward Albee photo

“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.”

Edward Albee (1928–2016) American playwright

"Edward Albee : An Interview", in Edward Albee : Planned Wilderness (1980) edited by Patricia De La Fuente, p. 8
Context: I've noticed that there is not necessarily a great relationship between what the majority of critics have to say and what is actually true. Some of them are so busy trying to mold the public taste according to the limits of their perceptions, and others are so busy reflecting what they consider to be the public taste — that view limited again by their perception. 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.

“Yet true it is, as cow chews cud
And trees at spring do yield forth bud,
Except wind stands as never it stood,
It is an ill wind turns none to good.”

Thomas Tusser (1524–1580) English poet

A Description of the Properties of Wind, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Tsunetomo Yamamoto photo

“It is not good to settle into a set of opinions. It is a mistake to put forth effort and obtain some understanding and then stop at that.”

Hagakure (c. 1716)
Context: It is not good to settle into a set of opinions. It is a mistake to put forth effort and obtain some understanding and then stop at that. At first putting forth great effort to be sure that you have grasped the basics, then practicing so that they may come to fruition is something that will never stop for your whole lifetime. Do not rely on following the degree of understanding that you have discovered, but simply think, "This is not enough."
One should search throughout his whole life how best to follow the Way. And he should study, setting his mind to work without putting things off. Within this is the Way.

Joseph Addison photo

Related topics