We have been educated to such a fine -- or dull -- point that we are incapable of enjoying something new, something different, until we are first told what it's all about. We don't trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. In short, the blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way.

Don't mind criticism. If it is untrue, disregard it; if unfair, keep from irritation; if it is ignorant, smile; if it is justified it is not criticism, learn from it.

They condemn what they do not understand.

Brilliant people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people.

It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.

Even the lion has to defend himself against flies.

He who throws dirt always loses ground.

Men over forty are no judges of a book written in a new spirit.

Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.

Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.