“We mistakenly equate flattery to friendship and criticism to opposition; one should evaluate truth first and then judge, for flattery and criticism are primarily opinion.”

“The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.”

“I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.”

“Critical evaluation was transformed into understanding, and criticism became not an act of judgment but of comprehension.”

“None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.”

“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”

“Let the critics ask! Their very opposition may serve as a stimulant for their own curiosity, causing them to enter into a deeper research or analysis. The truth will always prevail in spite of personal or limited opinions.”

“Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.”

“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.”

“Whenever convictions are not arrived at by direct contact with the world and the objects themselves, but indirectly through a critique of the opinions of others, the processes of thinking are impregnated with ressentiment. The establishment of “criteria” for testing the correctness of opinions then becomes the most important task. Genuine and fruitful criticism judges all opinions with reference to the object itself. Ressentiment criticism, on the contrary, accepts no “object” that has not stood the test of criticism”