
Criticism
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books
Criticism
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books
Context: Critics generally come to be critics by reason not of their fitness for this but of their unfitness for anything else. Books should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were crimes, and counsel should be heard on both sides.
Criticism
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books
“The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.”
Source: The Age of Innocence (1920), Ch. 34
“Kant's critical philosophy is the most elaborate fit of panic in the history of the Earth.”
Source: The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (1992), Chapter 1: "The death of sound philosophy", p. 1
“A literary critic of experience never defines anything.”
Source: "Quotes", Interviews with Northrop Frye (2008), p. 4
Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 21.
“Reason operates critically in any number of different ways.”
Source: Dynamics Of Theology, Chapter Two, Faith and the Community of Beliefs, p. 39
The Killing Season, Episode two: Great Moral Challenge (2009–10)
"On Freedom" in All Life is Problem Solving (1999)
Context: When I speak of reason or rationalism, all I mean is the conviction that we can learn through criticism of our mistakes and errors, especially through criticism by others, and eventually also through self-criticism. A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others — not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others. The emphasis here is on the idea of criticism or, to be more precise, critical discussion. The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff. He is well aware that acceptance or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it.
“I don't know a critic who penetrates the center of anything.”
As quoted in "Arthur Miller, Moral Voice of American Stage, Dies at 89" by Marilyn Berger in The New York Times (11 February 2005)
“The practice of "reviewing"… in general has nothing in common with the art of criticism.”
Criticism (1893).