Quote#Books & Reading
Critics generally come to be critics by reason not of their fitness…
Quote bySamuel Butler · 1835–1902
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Part VII: On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books, Criticism.
English (original)
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.
— Samuel Butler
More from Samuel Butler
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall; Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught, Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth: O God! O Montreal!
We can see nothing face to face; our utmost seeing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in an overcrowded pocket.
The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar — He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs.
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.