Age Quote by Samuel Johnson

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature…

— Samuel Johnson

What if criticism is a science as well as an art? Not a pure or exact science, of course, but these phrases belong to…

— Northrop Frye

“...the progress of science depends much less upon either theoretical considerations or systematic investigation than is commonly believed, but rather on the transmittal of…

— Gene Wolfe

Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than…

— Jean de la Bruyere

“With the idol of certainty (including that of degrees of imperfect certainty or probability) there falls one of the defences of obscurantism which bar…

— Karl Popper

There is a chasm between knowledge and ignorance which the arches of science can never span.

— Henry David Thoreau

Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.

— Charles Babbage

Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than…

— Jean de la Bruyere

“Seldom – perhaps never – has science been driven forward more swiftly and successfully by animosity.”

— Bill Bryson

“I never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be…

— G.K. Chesterton

To the scientists of the Renaissance, your critic was really your ally, helping you advance upon reality. Critics in science are not like drama…

— Martin Seligman

Scientific men can hardly escape the charge of ignorance with regard to the precise effect of the impact of modern science upon the mode…

— Frederick Soddy