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Criticize   /krˈɪtɪsˌaɪz/   Listen
Criticize

verb
1.
Find fault with; express criticism of; point out real or perceived flaws.  Synonyms: criticise, knock, pick apart.  "Don't knock the food--it's free"
2.
Act as a critic.  Synonym: criticise.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Criticize" Quotes from Famous Books



... bet that all that hair grew on his face," Jet said to himself, as he approached the table, but he gave the matter no further thought, for it was his business to obey orders, and not criticize his patrons. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis

... Bolingbroke. He was the inspirer of writers. Burke devoured Bolingbroke, and when he took up his pen, wrote with the same magnificent, stately minuet step. Finally he was full of the essence of Bolingbroke to the point of saturation, and then he began to criticize him. Had Bolingbroke been alive Burke would have quarreled with him—they were so much alike. As it was, Burke contented himself by writing a book after the style of Bolingbroke, carrying the great man's arguments one step further with intent to show their fallacy. The paraphrase ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... be wondered at, therefore, if our simple-hearted, loving Mary strangely found all her indignation against him gone, and herself little disposed to criticize the impassioned tenderness with which Madame de ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... patience, but there are still many points of mind and person which they leave vague and problematic; so I must tell you that Miss Linnet had dark ringlets, a sallow complexion, and an amiable disposition. As to her features, there was not much to criticize in them, for she had little nose, less lip, and no eyebrow; and as to her intellect, her friend Mrs. Pettifer often said: 'She didn't know a more sensible person to talk to than Mary Linnet. There was no one she liked better to come and ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... weave some of your heart spells for me, dearest dear Betty [Peter wrote], I am sending you the manuscript of Act I and part of Act II, and I know you will read them carefully and let me know fully what you think of them. Criticize them from your splendid human viewpoint. The dear old governor has been rather hard on me of late, and I may have to go into the office yet. Death! Help, rescue me, dear, for to put a play across will be my salvation from his prejudices. I must do ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... I don't see why I couldn't write better advice to boys than a doddering old man who has only his recollections to draw on. I could criticize the faults that I see before me. Boys need to be shown themselves as they appear to the girls, and I'm not sure but I'll act on Norman's suggestion, and take ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... of the religion of the red race" (pp. 89, 90). This imaginary antithesis he traces out between the Algonkin and Apalachian tribes, and between the Toltecs of Guatemala and the Aztecs of Mexico. His quotations are nearly all at second hand, and so little does he criticize his facts as to confuse the Vaudoux worship of the Haitian negroes with that of Votan in Chiapa. His work can in no sense ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... of four pages, happy work! Which not even critics criticize, that holds Inquisitive attention while I read— What is it, but a busy map of life, Its fluctuations ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... 1. Criticize this selection for its diction and sentence structure. What excellences has it? What can you find fault with? Does its ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... capacity is no measure of his power to do mischief. Mr. Smith has untiring energy, which does something; self-evident honesty of conviction, which does more; and a long purse, which does most of all. He has made at least ten publications, full of figures which few readers can criticize. A great many people are staggered to this extent, that they imagine there must be {130} the indefinite something in the mysterious all this. They are brought to the point of suspicion that the mathematicians ought not to treat "all this" with ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... to noble nature like spring rain and sun to the earth. Ignore or make light of his small failings, and when you must criticize a serious fault, do not dwell upon it. A husband and wife should endeavour to be such good friends that kindly criticism is accepted as an evidence of mutual love which desires the highest attainments ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... misgiving. There may be differences of opinion as to the precise amount of literary merit in these tales; but viewed as the first productions of a young author, they are surely full of promise; while their whole tone and aim is so unmistakably high, that even those who criticize the style will be apt to ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Our socialistic friends sometimes criticize Andrew Carnegie for making the vast amount of money that he has. We can't swear a halibi for him, and so my excuse for the man is this: He never knew it was loaded—it was largely accidental. In truth he couldn't help making the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... the Austrian government, I cannot regard the cessation of those functions as release from obligations both to that government and my own, which render it improper for me, so long as the Austrians remain in Venice, to criticize their rule, or contribute, by comment on existing things, to embitter the feeling against them elsewhere. I may, nevertheless, speak dispassionately of facts of the abnormal social and political state of the place; and ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... is a method liable to a superficiality; the second is to take such a work chapter by chapter, and to piece the various criticisms into an ordered whole. This I have attempted to do. I make no attempt to criticize the method of Chesterton's approach to Browning, or his combination of the effect of his life on his work; rather I wish to take what the critic says and comment ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... sterling;—three million one hundred and seventy- four thousand eight hundred and two![12] I asked my wife, when she had gone over it, what she thought of the building. 'I cannot', said she, 'tell you what I think, for I know not how to criticize such a building, but I can tell you what I feel. I would die to-morrow to have such another over me.' This is what many a lady has ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... It has a Monument that will never be finished, a Capitol that is to have a dome, a Scientific Institute which does nothing but report the rise and fall of the thermometer, and two pieces of Equestrian Statuary which it would be a waste of time to criticize. It boasts a streamlet dignified with the name of the river Tiber, and this streamlet is of the size and much the appearance of a vein in a dirty man's arm. It has a canal, but the canal is a mud-puddle during one half the day and an empty ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... one of these occasions that Mrs. Salisbury first had what she felt was good reason to criticize Justine. During a brief absence from home of both boys, their mother planned a rather formal dinner. Four of her closest friends, two couples, were asked, and Owen Sargent was invited by Sandy to make the group an even eight. This was as ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris

... She hurried on to contradict, or at least to modify, her reluctant charge. "Oh, I know you are a great influence here. You're known all over the state. Men follow you wherever you lead. Why should I criticize you—I, who have done nothing all my ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... great, came down to breakfast the next morning with a return of energy that gladdened Helen and set Miriam thinking swiftly of all the things she had left undone. But Mildred Caniper was fair, and where she no longer ruled, she would not criticize. She condescended, however, to ask ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... went off very well, as I hear. No alterations were suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, so far as I know. Sometimes people criticize the poems one sends them, and suggest all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that wanted Burns to alter "Scots wha hae," so as to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... bring one up, sooner or later. A man can hardly get over either of them without knowing it. Well, Soapey having got into Oxford Street, would make his way at a squarey, in-kneed, duck-toed, sort of pace, regulated by the bonnets, the vehicles, and the equestrians he met to criticize; for of women, vehicles, and horses, he had voted himself a consummate judge. Indeed, he had fully established in his own mind that Kiddey Downey and he were the only men in London who really knew anything about, horses, and fully impressed with that conviction, he would halt, and ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... brimming glass, our praise shall then be ample, But don't dole out too small a sample; For if I'm to judge and criticize, I need a good mouthful ...
— Faust • Goethe

... of people who criticize the Church. First, there are those who claim great love for their fellow-men, but do not go to church because it is allied with the property interests of the community. I believe that to be the fundamental reason why the wage workers, labour leaders, ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson

... escort Miss Rabbit to her omnibus, and, in spite of hints from Mrs. Mills, remained when all the other guests had departed. He took opportunity to criticize the management of the evening, and to deplore the fact that his services had not been utilized. Making an estimate of the total cost, he again referred to his suggestion in regard to a series of similar ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... newspaper, but a gazette of governmental notices, etc. The Government has its own printing-office, but if these other, the 'Tribune' and the 'Liberal,' had establishments here, they would be raided and closed, for they would hardly be allowed to criticize the Government as harshly as they do. The 'Tribune' is in French and Tahitian, the 'Liberal' and the 'Journal Officiel' in French. One time it was recommended that the official paper might be more popular if it had some fiction for the natives, so they printed a translation of 'Ali Baba and the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... am no genius. I do happen to have an education that provides me with the right to criticize your social behavior. I will neither be insulted ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... tactful courtesy toward all classes, she may contribute mightily to the popular influence of her husband; and if she is a woman of culture and literary taste, she can be of immense service to him in the preparation of his sermons. The best critic that ministers can have is one who has a right to criticize and to "truth it in love." Who has a better right to reprove, exhort and correct with all long suffering than the woman who has given us her heart and herself? There are a hundred matters in the course of a year in which a sensible woman's instincts are wiser than those ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... Milton by the Learned Dr. Bentley is, in the main, a Performance of another Species. It is plain, it was the Intention of that Great Man rather to correct and pare off the Excrescencies of the Paradise Lost, in the Manner that Tucca and Varius were employ'd to criticize the AEneis of Virgil, than to restore corrupted Passages. Hence, therefore, may be seen either the Iniquity or Ignorance of his Censurers, who, from some Expressions, would make us believe, the Doctor every where gives us his Corrections as the original Text of the Author; whereas the chief ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... form in which it was to appear, the correction of the proofs, the binding, title, and final advertisement—engaged his closest attention. Besides the elegant appearance of his books, he also aimed at raising the standard of the literature which he published. He had to criticize as well as to select; to make suggestions as to improvements where the manuscript was regarded with favour, and finally to launch the book at the right time and under the best possible auspices. It might almost be said of the publisher, as it is of the poet, that ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... was full of grace. King ascribed the difference to the fact that the Rangar had seen no military service, and before the inadequacy of that explanation had asserted itself he had already forgotten to criticize in ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... patronising disposition always has its meaner side, and in the confusion of his irritation and alarm there entered the feeling that a man to whom he had shown so much favour as to Adam was not in a position to criticize his conduct. And yet he was dominated, as one who feels himself in the wrong always is, by the man whose good opinion he cares for. In spite of pride and temper, there was as much deprecation as anger in his voice when he said, "What do ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... years." Amy had planted so deep in him the feeling that money is everything; she had got the fever into his blood. And Fanny was there to keep it alive by her flattery of his money success. And for Ethel, even still, it was decidedly unsafe to criticize Joe in some of his moods. As autumn changed to winter, these moods grew much more frequent. What was worrying him? She couldn't find out. She sent for Nourse and asked him, "What's going on ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... Cousin John, who concludes I take an unusual interest in his speculations; and forthwith we proceed to criticize the three animals brought to the post, and to agree that Captain Lovell's Parachute is far the best-looking of the lot; or, as Sir Guy Scapegrace says to the well-pleased owner, "If make and shape go for anything, Frank, she ought to beat them, as far ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... Mary Louise, refusing the proffered chair and giving the room a hasty, critical look. Even in that critical look she could find naught to criticize. The cabin was a small three-room affair, set back from the street, between two vacant old storehouses. Zeke had whitewashed it without and calcimined it within, and with the free air that circulated the place this treatment ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... lamented that literary culture was deemed incompatible with faith. Boccaccio was as much a child of this world as Dante was a prophet of the next. [Sidenote: Boccaccio, 1313-1375] Too simple-minded deliberately to criticize doctrine, he was instinctively opposed to ecclesiastical professions. Devoting himself to celebrating the pleasures and the pomp of life, he took especial delight in heaping ridicule on ecclesiastics, representing them as the quintessence of all ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... as Theophrastan as he professes to be. True, he harks back to Theophrastus in matters of style and technique. And he does not criticize him, as does La Bruyere,[6] for paying too much attention to a man's external actions, and not enough to his "Thoughts, Sentiments, and Inclinations." Nevertheless his mind is receptive to the kind of individuated characterization ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally

... about the services and the clergy. Make it a rule for yourself, wherever you are, never to criticize the clergyman or the sermon. Very likely you might say something to the point—it might do him good if he heard it! That will not happen, and what will happen is, that you will do yourself harm by being critical or amused, instead of making your ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... Germans live our history to come in thought, in philosophy. We are philosophical contemporaries of the present without being its historical contemporaries. German philosophy is the ideal prolongation of German history. If, therefore, we criticize the oeuvres posthumes of our ideal history, philosophy, instead of the oeuvres incompletes of our real history, our criticism occupies a position among the questions of which the present says: that is the question.[4] That which represents the decaying ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... men became more lively. They began to criticize all sorts of things which they had believed in and reverenced before. During the Middle Ages many things which the Romans and Greeks had loved had been forgotten and despised; but now there was a sudden new enthusiasm for the beautiful ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... science of government to be complete and unquestioned mastery. We have learned much since then. Let us look back to those days for a moment, to get the just perspective. One of the first significant things we notice is that those people were free to criticize their politicians—baaing across the hurdles, as it were. That was why they had to have explained to them the "Objects of the War." They actually did not want to die. They were reluctant to go to battle unless they knew why they were going. True, it was easy enough to find a reason ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... learned that some misunderstood my closing words, and thought I again referred to the students, but this is an error. They were making no disturbance when I finished speaking. I did not even mean to criticize the band, because I was sure that the interruption was not intentional, but my voice being hoarse and the crowd large, it was difficult to make myself heard even when there was ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... vii., the Lacedaemonian expresses a momentary irritation at the accusation which the Athenian brings against the Spartan institutions, of encouraging licentiousness in their women, but he is reminded by the Cretan that the permission to criticize them freely has been given, and cannot be retracted. His only criterion of truth is the authority of the Spartan lawgiver; he is 'interested,' in the novel speculations of the Athenian, but inclines to ...
— Laws • Plato

... a few mistakes, Regardless of his aim. But never, never criticize And cloud him o'er with blame; For all have failed in many things And keenly feel the smarting stings, Which haunt the mind by day and night Till they have made ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... he was. She had not meant to criticize his ability to conduct negotiations of the very highest importance, but she was surprised, in view of her earnest request, that he had even mentioned this particular matter to anybody. She reminded him that insurance was his forte, and that their understanding had been that she was to take exclusive ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... don't see where you fellows get off to criticize," retorted the harassed youth. "I never saw any of you win gold medals for ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman

... to abridge the Greek Criticks, whom he probably never thought of; nor to amuse himself with composing a short critical system, for the general use of poets, which every line of it absolutely confutes; but, simply to criticize the Roman drama.' For to this end, not the tenor of the work only, but as will appear, every single precept in it, ultimately refers. The mischiefs of this original error have been long felt. It hath ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... eyesore," Marshall termed it in private. But then there was no accounting for the ways of folk in high places. Marshall did not pretend to understand them. He was, in his own grumpy fashion, sincerely attached to his master, and he never presumed to criticize his doings. He ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... did not relish the idea of creating public opinion among the Korean people. The members of the Independence Club did not have any official status, but they enjoyed the privilege of free speech during the meeting of this club, and they did not hesitate to criticize their own officials, as well as those of the foreign nations who tried to put through certain schemes in Korea for the benefit of their selfish interests. In the course of a year and a half the opposition to this club developed in a marked degree not among the people, but among a few government ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... and publicly to criticize judicial action is of vastly more importance to the body politic than the immunity of courts and judges from unjust aspersions and attack. Nothing tends more to render judges careful in their decisions and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... Isaac Hopper, of the Thirty-first, is a big contractor. The downtown leaders wouldn't do uptown, and vice versa. So, you see, these fool critics don't know what they're talkin' about when they criticize Tammany Hall, the most perfect political machine ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt

... women will do, though when judge, jury and advocate are all one, the verdict is a foregone conclusion. She tightened the seam under her arm, used the scissors discreetly here and there, and continued to argue the point, though there was none who had a right to question or to criticize. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... about gold stockings, and about showing your ankles to schoolteachers and all!" More mildly: "You gave 'em a good time, but I'd watch out for that, 'f I were you. Juanita Haydock is such a damn cat. I wouldn't give her a chance to criticize me." ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... many weeks to the subject as Mr. Darwin has given years [as a matter of fact, it is now twenty years since I began to publish on the subject of Evolution] is not content to air his own crude, though clever, fallacies, but presumes to criticize 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 of Nature, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... unfriendly. We demand that certain music shall be full of color, and we always seek color in the pages of our favorite books. One poet has color and to spare, another is cynical and hard and—gray. We think and criticize from the standpoint of an appreciation of color, although often we have not ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... had a good word even for the Socialist Jaures. When Borchart had finished and naively expressed satisfaction with his own work the Emperor said, "Na, na, friend Borchart, not so proud; it is for us to criticize." ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... successful men in the world have certain principles to guide their every-day life. If we could only smile instead of frown, when people criticize or condemn us, how much more successful would be ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry

... until his death in 1867, the spiritual head of the society, wrote an account of the society from the time he became an "instrument" until the removal to Iowa. From this, and from a volume of Barbara Heynemann's inspired utterances, I gather that the congregations did not hesitate to criticize, and very sharply, the conduct of their spiritual leaders; and to depose them, and even expel them for cause. Moreover, they recount in their books, without disguise, all their misunderstandings. Thus it is recorded of Barbara Heynemann that in 1820 she was condemned ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... Africa was theoretically an association for the worship of the imperial house. It had some political importance, however, inasmuch as it might criticize the governor and forward its criticisms to the ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... enchanting voyage brought us to Lake Umbagog. Whiff's of mist had met us in the outlet. Presently we opened chaos, and chaos shut in upon us. There was no Umbagog to be seen,—nothing but a few yards of gray water and a world of gray vapor. Therefore I cannot criticize, nor insult, nor compliment Umbagog. Let us deem it beautiful. The sun tried at the fog, to lift it with leverage of his early level beams. Failing in this attempt to stir and heave away the mass, he climbed, and began to use his beams ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... to Chancellor Hoyt. He was suffering fearfully with old-fashioned consumption, but he used to send for me to read to him to distract his thoughts. He would also criticize my conversation, never letting one word pass that was ungrammatical or incorrectly pronounced. If I said, "I am so glad," he would ask, "So glad that what? You don't give the correlative." He warned against reliance on the aid of alliteration. The books read to him were discussed and the authors ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... suit London? There would be much for him to do in teaching her, and it would be well for him to set about the lesson without loss of time. So far he got that night, but when the morning came he went a step further, and began mentally to criticize her manner to himself. It had been very sweet, that warm, that full, that ready declaration of love. Yes; it had been very sweet; but—but—; when, after her little jokes, she did confess her love, had she not been a little too free for feminine excellence? ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... been a popular governor since the appointment of his son-in-law to the office of provincial secretary. The House of Assembly, therefore, was disposed to watch his conduct very closely and to criticize actions which perhaps would not have attracted so much attention under other conditions. During the session of 1846, it was shown that he had appropriated a portion of the surplus civil list fund, amounting to about three ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... lessons rests primarily upon interest. If you can secure interest, the children will talk freely; if you retain interest, you can criticize freely and with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... in a dress-suit to open the door. The rest of us—our wives answer the door-bell themselves. Our folks are kind of afraid to invite Mr. and Mrs. Shelby to their parties for fear they'll criticize; so Mrs. Shelby feels as if she ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... wife made no reply, for she well knew that though he might criticize, he would not actually interfere ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman

... mean?" said I, with forced calmness. He took the paper out of my hand and began to criticize without pity, every verse, every word, tearing me up in the most malicious fashion. It was too much. I snatched the paper from him, declaring that never again would I show ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin

... in mind. The only one she doubted was Worth. Somehow he annoyed her; she could not explain, yet still the sense of annoyance was always there. It might have been that she had seen that look in other eyes, and that it usually led to the same end. She could not criticize his actions; he was always the perfection of courtesy to her, never overstepped, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... Mark Carter's recent protection. Therefore he had growled "Ello!" grimly whenever she accosted him and let it go at that. If it had come to a show down he would have stood up for her because he knew that Mark would, that was all. Mark knew his own business. Far be it from Billy to criticize his hero's reasons. Perhaps it was one of Mark's weaknesses. It was up to him. That was the code of a "white man" as Billy had learned ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... king of the range. And bulls with red rings round the eyes by preference, as they can stand the bright glare of these hot, dry countries better. It used to be my keen delight to attend the annual cattle shows and auction sales of pure-bred bulls, and I would feel their hides and criticize their points till I almost began to imagine myself as competent ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... Instruction. His work in these two positions suffered very materially because of his negligence and daily practice in writing verses and essays for Flaubert, the most careful literary technicist in the history of literature, to criticize. For seven years Maupassant served this severe task-master, always writing, ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... church. But you can't evade me like that." She tapped the edge of his seat with the toe of her gold slipper. "You sat there all evening, glaring at me as if you could eat me alive. Now I give you a chance to state your objections, and you merely criticize my audience. What is it? Is it merely that you happen to dislike my personality? In that case, of course, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... into the workshop he began to expatiate on the same subject. He would stand there turning the hated shoes over between his hands. Then he would criticize them. "We must take more ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... no wish to criticize my able predecessor. His map, all things considered, is a marvel of accuracy; and the high praise of Wellsted (ii. 148) only ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... not an uncommon thing for the author of a book to write a self-review (Selbst-Kritik), and these were generally far better than reviews written by friends or enemies. For who knows the strong and weak points of a book so well as the author? True; but a whole life is more difficult to review and to criticize than a single book. Nevertheless it must be admitted that an autobiography has many advantages, and it might be well if every man of note, nay, every man who has something to say for himself that he wishes posterity to know, should say it himself. This would in time ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... words, to determine the limits within which the speculative moralist may legitimately endeavour to reform the existing moral sentiment. It is plain that it must be open to the moralist, and, in fact, to every intelligent citizen, to criticize the current morality, or else moral progress, even if it took place at all, would, on many points of conduct, be exceedingly slow. But, on the other hand, it is equally plain that a constant discussion of the accepted rules of conduct would weaken the moral sentiment, lessen the sense ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... he married my mother, which always seems unfair to her anyway. Somehow I can never think of father as ever having been a kind man, and I've no doubt that poor mother had anything but an easy time of it with him. However, it is not for me to criticize." She paused, but went on almost immediately. "Let me see, it was directly after the honeymoon that he went away on his last trading trip. He was to call at Java. Jake was his mate, you know, and they were expecting to return in six months' time with a rich harvest of ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... Catholic hierarchy which was most effective in keeping these agitators long in a powerless minority. In the early days of the party this hostility was not unwarranted. Many of the young crusaders had definitely left the fold of the Church to criticize it from without, to demand the abolition of the Pope's temporal power in Europe and of the Church's tithing privileges in Canada, and to express heterodox doubts on matters of doctrine. This period soon passed, and the radical leaders confined themselves to demanding freedom of thought ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ANCIENT'S proper character; His fable, subject, scope in ev'ry page; 120 Religion, Country, genius of his Age: Without all these at once before your eyes, Cavil you may, but never criticize. Be Homer's works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night; 125 Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring. Still with itself compar'd, his text peruse; ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... for it, that both the naval and military men do not realize how much their existence depends on a well-handled and judiciously treated mercantile marine. I have too much regard for every phase of seafaring life to criticize it unfairly, but, except on very rare occasions, I have found naval and military men so profoundly absorbed in their own professions that they do not trouble to regard ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... not fair to charge the minister with being professional, nor to say that in his appeal he is perfunctory. Nor is it always just to criticize those who are in the church, for not speaking to the unsaved, for there may be an explanation. Sometimes we feel a sense of our own unworthiness. There are business men who know that if they should speak to their ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman

... of people, still there might be some features of the country and some traits of the people which had escaped my attention; and thirdly, though I had seen much in America to arouse my admiration, I felt that here and there, there was room for improvement, and to be compelled to criticize people who had been generous, courteous, and kind was something I did not wish to do. In answer to my scruples I was told that I was not expected to write about America in a partial or unfair manner, but to state impressions of the ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... Bob approached him with some question connected with the night of the tragedy, but at first Fremont refused to talk on the subject, well knowing that the big fellow would only criticize what he said. After a time, however, Fremont decided that it might be to his advantage to draw the fellow out, and the next time he ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... color and its smell. If you do that there ain't nothin' left in your hands but dead leaves. And, dear, don't look at it through a microscope; it'll make the little things look too big. Quarrel once in a while if you must, but don't criticize his kind of love. A person's love is his own ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper

... to be contemporaneous with the lowest formations in Wales; for the scanty paleontological evidence suffices for neither proof nor disproof. Now, had there been a continuity of like strata in like order between Wales and Scotland, there might have been little to criticize in this conclusion. But since Sir R. Murchison himself admits, that in Westmoreland and Cumberland, some members of the system "assume a lithological aspect different from what they maintain in the Silurian and Welsh region," there seems ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... changing, and every person is doing his part in his own way. It is not for you to criticize me or for me to criticize you, but to judge men by their motives and to judge them by the side they are on. Labor must stand for its own men. (Loud applause). It must stand even for its own mistakes, and its own crimes if it is guilty of them. (Applause). There is one question, ...
— Industrial Conspiracies • Clarence S. Darrow

... the self-conscious girl. Shy and made awkward by her shyness, unable to forget that she has hands and feet, painfully aware that she must walk while others watch her, that she is expected to say something and those who listen will criticize, she suffers intensely. The great onrush of self overwhelms her, she stammers, blushes, fingers and eyes help to reveal her suffering and as soon as possible she beats a retreat. How intense her sufferings are ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery

... which he had plucked; and there it was, for the universe to see, for the universe to heed as a matter of course. For himself, since he had married her, he had never thought of another woman for an instant, except either to admire or to criticize her; and his criticism was, as Jasmine had said, "infantile." The sum of it was, he was married to the woman of his choice, she was married to the man of her choice; and there it was, there it was, a great, eternal, settled ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... same with art. On the one or two isolated varnishing days when we go to a gallery we criticize the pictures quite fiercely. "We know what we like." Yes, perhaps we do. I am not sure even of that. But in eighty-five cases out of a hundred none of us have any knowledge of the history of painting or any ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... who came from Louisville, Ky., was a ball-player from the ground up, and as good a second baseman as there was in the profession, the only thing that I ever found to criticize in his play being a tendency to pose for the benefit of the occupants of the grand stand. He was a brilliant player, however, and as good a man in this position according to my estimate as any that ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... wise persons do not apply such adjectives to dukes. And wise persons do not criticize Count Eglamore's appearance, either, now that Eglamore is indispensable to the all-powerful Duke ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell

... as a classic with Cowper and Lamb. From time to time he would come to London for a visit to a picture gallery or an evening with his friends; and for many years he never failed to write once a year for news of the poet, whose books he might criticize capriciously, but whose image was always fresh in his affectionate heart. Of his old Cambridge circle Tennyson honoured, above all others, 'his domeship' James Spedding, of the massive rounded head, of the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... novel lack the brisk movement, the sparkling compactness, the stinging surprises of Mr. Reade's usual style, but he kindles and condenses as he proceeds. As a whole, the work compares favorably with his most brilliant compositions. He is a writer difficult to criticize, because his defects are pleasing defects. Dogmatism is commonly offensive, and Mr. Reade's dogmatism is of the most uncompromising, not to say insulting character; yet it is exhibited in connection with insight so sure and vivid, that we pardon the positiveness of the assertion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... aesthetics is ideally the complete rationale of criticism, the systematic achievement, for its own sake, of what the thoughtful critic attempts with less exactness and for the direct purpose of appreciation. It is beyond the province of aesthetics to criticize any particular work of art, except by way of illustration. The importance of illustration for the sake of explaining and proving general principles is, however, fundamental; for, as we have seen, a valuable aesthetic theory is impossible unless developed out of the primary aesthetic life of enjoyment ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... Major Carstairs' reply was decisive. "And anyone who ventures to criticize your action proclaims himself a fool. As for the stupid accusations in this letter, well, I should say no one would ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... assuming that Jesus shared that view. But it is quite clear from the New Testament writers (the chief authorities for believing that Jesus ever existed) that Jesus at the time of his death believed himself to be the Christ, a divine personage. It is therefore absurd to criticize his conduct before Pilate as if he were Colonel Roosevelt or Admiral von Tirpitz or even Mahomet. Whether you accept his belief in his divinity as fully as Simon Peter did, or reject it as a delusion which led him ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... interest may be not only retrospective but contemporary. The reader of the present volume will appreciate "How to Criticize a Poem (In the Manner of Certain Contemporary Poets)", a critique of the mnemonic rhyme "Thirty days hath September," in the New Republic, December ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe

... young man," I said earnestly, "but I have seen all kinds of life, both right and wrong, upper and lower. I can realize how easy it is to sit in a club window, and criticize the people passing along the street. That is an amusement of fools. The inclination to become one of that class left me long ago. Now I do not understand why you were upon the street tonight unattended; why you came to my assistance, or why you are here with me now. I ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... wasn't criticism," he declared. "God knows I couldn't criticize you. You ought to know that. This is the nearest we've ever come to a quarrel, dear, since the Barbara Freitchie days, and it's closer than I want to come. Besides, it's not just your laughter that I love. It's all of you: heart, mind, body: the whole lovely trinity of yourself. I mean to wage ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... it is a highly ornamented stupa with galleries of sculpture rising one above the other on its sides—has been often described and can be described intelligibly only at considerable length. I will therefore not attempt to detail or criticize its beauties but will merely state some points which are important ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... rooms and tear into the work for all they were worth, making the same sort of 'job' as the one they had been criticizing, and afterwards, when the other's back was turned, each of them in turn would sneak into the other's room and criticize it and point out the faults to anyone else who happened ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... to get a class to criticize all original tunes when played by the young composer. For one thing, the criticism of our contemporaries often carries more weight than that of our elders; and for another, the practice arouses the critical faculty, and teaches the children to listen keenly, for they have not the ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home

... you would be of great help to me," Shiel said; "you would at least criticize my efforts, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... don't know." She had been quick to grasp in it the journalistic lack of restraint hinted at by Caldwell. "I liked it, but I thought it praised you too much, it didn't criticize you enough." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... boarding-house years have steered me safely past that. After such a course in common sense you don't stand back and examine the pictures of a pink Moses in a nest of purple bullrushes, or complain because the bureau does not harmonize with the wall paper. Neither do you criticize the blue and saffron roses that form the rug pattern. 'Deedy not! Instead you warily punch the mattress to see if it is rock-stuffed, and you snoop into the clothes closet; you inquire the distance to the nearest bath ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... criticize our suite!" she said gaily. "This is a combination bedroom, dining-room, and kitchen. I am the cook and housemaid, and Papa Claude is the butler. You ought to see the way I've learned ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... would satisfy a northern public? Certainly, without the power of entering to some degree into Italian sentiment, it is impossible to appreciate the characteristic excellence of these poems, and many distinguished men declare that they can make nothing of them. And in truth, if we criticize Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto, and Berni solely with an eye to their thought and matter, we shall fail to do them justice. They are artists of a peculiar kind, who write for a people which is distinctly and ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... of his old sofa, very silent. Now and again, as some long number or specially magniloquent phrase would strike his ear, he expressed his surprise by a sort of gasp; but throughout the whole morning he did not speak a word as to the business on hand. Jones for the first few minutes attempted to criticize; but the authority of Mr. Sloman and the burly aspect of Mr. Giles the paper-dealer, were soon too much for his courage, and he also collapsed into silence. But the three gentlemen who were most concerned ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope

... to talk about the Baxter failure and criticize Lige," she deplored to Mrs. Jonas. "And it riles Sara up so terrible. She used to declare that she hated Lige, and now she won't listen to a word against him. Not that I say any, myself. I'm sorry for him, and I believe he's ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... that some time or other the plebeian Bennington blood would crop out," went on Mrs. Haldene. "But we must not criticize the ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... conditions of tropical life, I've written a good deal on the subject, I've been in the Philippines and have published a book and a number of articles about them, and, although I don't take as gloomy a view as you do about the administration out there, I found a good deal to criticize, and if I go out I can certainly describe the conditions as they are now, and your editorial writers can put my articles to whatever use ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland

... retire—or be retired. The combat continues until the second whistle, blown not more than 30 seconds after contact; when they cease fighting promptly, separate, and form as before. c. Criticism: After each combat, the instructor will criticize the manner of advance and of fighting, especially the alignment kept in the advance and the team work in combat, and the advantage taken of opponents' mistakes. He counts the casualties and awards the decision. He must continually urge the men never to lag behind nor advance ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... Supposing the artist to be wholly freed from all modifying biases, such is seldom the case with those who criticize his work,—especially those who would show their superiority by detecting faults, and who frequently condemn the painter simply for not expressing what he never aimed at. As to some, they are never content if they do not find beauty, whatever the subject, though it may neutralize ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... expedition, General Putnam lost no time in getting to New York, arriving there on the 4th of April, whither he was followed by Washington nine days later. The Commander-in-Chief found, when he arrived, little to criticize and much to commend in what Putnam had done, for he had already stopped the Tories from furnishing supplies to the British fleet, had commenced to fortify Governor's Island and Red Hook, increased the ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... awake at that hour, yet Scotland Yard was awake in the person of the fierce-eyed Chief Inspector and his subordinate. Perhaps those who lightly criticize the Metropolitan Force might have learned a new respect for the tireless vigilance which keeps London clean and wholesome, had they witnessed this scene on the borders of Limehouse, as Kerry, stepping into a waiting taxi-cab accompanied by Durham, proceeded to Limehouse Police Station ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... studies, as they are termed, involving the exploration of the meaning of received ideas, must come first in any scheme of genuine education. We must learn to affirm before we can go on to learn how to criticize. But historical studies are a necessary sequel. Other people's received ideas turn out in the light of history to have sometimes worked well, and sometimes not so well; and we are thereupon led to revise our own opinions accordingly. Now the history of man has hitherto stood almost exclusively ...
— Progress and History • Various

... admirers at the time. Her chief amusement was to appoint interviews with them successively, at intervals so short that she was obliged to hurry away one in order to make room for another. And when a lover happened to be jealous, or ventured in any way to criticize her arrangements, she replied at once by showing him ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... disposed to criticize the articles of our contributors; nor do we feel disposed now to do more than to offer a brief suggestion in reference to a philosophical position assumed by the author of an interesting article in our last number, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... perhaps it was best to wait. And I am sure it is best, Jed. But then, I mean to put the whole dreadful business from my mind, if I can, and be happy with my little girl and my brother. And I am happy; I feel almost like a girl myself. So you mustn't remind me, Jed, and you mustn't criticize me, even though you and I both know you are right. You are my only confidant, you know, and I don't know what in the world I should do without you, so try to bear with ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... admire you very much. Your public record and private life prove you to be one of God's noblest—and rarest—works, an honest man. That you are the equal morally and the superior mentally of any man who has presumed to criticize you must be conceded. The prejudices of honesty are entitled to consideration and the judgment of genius to respect bordering on reverence; but in this age of almost universal inquiry we cannot accept any man, however wise, as infallible ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... Mrs. Mullet, were inclined to criticize, the many, like her husband, united in declaring Mary to be "all right." And her rearranging and displaying of the Christmas goods helped her and her uncles to dispose of them. In fact, for the three days before Christmas it became necessary ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... to criticize," he went on, as Tony did not answer. "If you want to know, I can tell you; and there's a heap of things you'd give your head to know now, I take it. I've heard many a tale I don't repeat, and I could make most people look rather ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... concert. The bashful and bewildered Arthur Inglewood almost struggled against his own growing importance. He felt as if, in spite of him, his photographs were turning into a picture gallery, and his bicycle into a gymkhana. But no one had any time to criticize these impromptu estates and offices, for they followed each other in wild succession like the topics of a ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... find nothing to criticize either in my apartment or in my country house. And, by the way, he showed his limitations by remarking, after he had inspected: "I must say, Blacklock, your architects and decorators have done well by you." As if a man's surroundings were ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... surprised, for Aunt Jean had the reputation of being a perfect housekeeper. However, I didn't say anything, and neither did the other girls. Mother had always impressed upon us that it was the height of bad manners to criticize anything we might not like in a house ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... willingly pardon him his patriotic self-love, often wounded by the ignorance of Europeans, above all in what concerns the New World, if only that national pride were without mixture of personal vanity; but how comes it that Mark Twain, so severe upon those poor Turks, finds scarcely anything to criticize in Russia, where absolutism has nevertheless not ceased to flourish? We need not seek far for the cause of this indulgence: the Czar received our ferocious republicans; the Empress, and the Grand Duchess Mary, spoke to them ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... piano Concerto in B flat minor, Op. 23, the first of three works of this kind. At a trial performance of it, his friend and former master, Nicholas Rubinstein, to whom it was dedicated, and who had promised to play the piano part, began to criticize it unmercifully and ended by saying it was quite unplayable, and unsuited ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... When they can do this, they are free to experiment with modifications, and there should be no objection to receiving help from any source; in fact, it is a good thing for the daughter to get her mother to criticize her and offer suggestions in the many little details familiar to every housekeeper, but which cannot always be given by ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... badly, that she had not done or said the right thing. Peter's attitude had shown that he felt the situation had been clumsily handled, and it was she who was responsible for it. Peter was too kind to criticize her, but she had vowed in the muffled depths of a feverish pillow that there should be no more flagrant flaws in the ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... are henceforth," she laughed. "Just fancy you, of all people, leading a double life under the name of Bill Jones!" and again she laughed so merrily that he joined in without reserve. Fortunately there was none near save a staid old waiter to criticize their freedom, and of him ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton



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