Mark Twain Criticism Quotations

The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades

Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds (when asked to comment on the music of Richard Wagner)

It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden. Meantime, I seem to have been drifting into criticism myself. But that is nothing. At the worst, criticism is nothing more than a crime, and I am not unused to that.

I like criticism, but it must be my way.

Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.

If you have no will to change it, you have no right to criticize it.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

One mustn't criticize other people on grounds where he can't stand perpendicular himself

You must not pay a person a compliment, and then straightway follow it with a criticism.