“It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.”

— Christian Nestell Bovee

Quoting Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), p. 132.
Misattributed

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Christian Nestell Bovee 21

American writer 1820–1904

Alfred Whitney Griswold (1906–1963) American historian

Rufus Wilmot Griswold, as quoted in Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862) by Christian Nestell Bovee, p. 132.
Misattributed

“You shouldn’t be so critical. Some people like this kind of thing, you know.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Relatives (1973)., Chapter 13 (p. 199).

“And the prospects for my future social life couldn't possibly be barrener.
Did I tell you that the prospects for my future social life couldn't be barrener?”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Good Intentions (1942), So Does Everybody Else, Only Not So Much
Context: And what really turns my corpuscles to ice,
I carry around clippings and read them to people twice.
And I know what I am doing while I am doing it and I don't want to do it but I can't help doing it and I am just another Ancient Mariner,
And the prospects for my future social life couldn't possibly be barrener.
Did I tell you that the prospects for my future social life couldn't be barrener?

“The creator gives no heed to the critic unless he becomes a barren inventor.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran (1962) as translated by Anthony R. Ferris

“Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.
"Good and Bad Reasons for Believing" [open letter to his daughter]
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)

“Exile desire
For what is not. This is the barrenness
Of the fertile thing that can attain no more.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

"Credences of Summer"
Collected Poems (1954)

“First one gets works of art, then criticism of them, then criticism of the criticism, and, finally, a book on The Literary Situation, a book which tells you all about writers, critics, publishing, paperbacked books, the tendencies of the (literary) time, what sells and how much, what writers wear and drink and want, what their wives wear and drink and want, and so on.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“ ‘Very Graceful Are the Uses of Culture’ ”, p. 211
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

“When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Margaret Chase Smith, quoted in More Than Petticoats : Remarkable Maine Women (2005) by Kate Kennedy
Misattributed

“When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it.”

Margaret Chase Smith (1897–1995) Member of the United States Senate from Maine

As quoted in "Nation: Madam Candidate" in TIME magazine (7 February 1964) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870656-2,00.html
Misattributed
Context: I am running against no one. I'd like to be President. I think my experience and my record are greater than any other candidate or any other of the unannounced candidates. It's a real challenge, and that's one of the paramount things. When people keep telling you that you can't do a thing, you kind of like to try it.

“The poet's job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always does take place. He gives you the typical, recurring, or what Aristotle calls universal event.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time

“It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.”

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Christian Nestell Bovee 21

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