That
is what the highest criticism really is, the record
of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than
history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It
is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject
is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It
is the only civilized form of autobiography.
-- Oscar Wilde
1856-1900, British
Author, Wit
Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic
-- a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty,
and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.
-- Oscar Wilde
1856-1900, British
Author, Wit
On an
occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral
duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.
-- Oscar Wilde
1856-1900, British
Author, Wit
Every
writer is necessarily a critic -- that is, each
sentence is a skeleton accompanied by enormous
activity of rejection; and each selection is
governed by general principles concerning truth,
force, beauty, and so on. The critic that is in
every fabulist is like the iceberg -- nine-tenths of
him is under water.
-- Thornton Wilder
1897-1975, American
Novelist, Playwright
