Books Quote by W.K. Wimsatt

“The critic's aim should be to interpret the work they are writing about and help readers appreciate it, by defining and analysing those qualities…

— David Cecil

The critic ... should be not merely a poet, not merely a philosopher, not merely an observer, but tempered of all three.

— Margaret Fuller

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

— Theophile Gautier

“[The poet] is no arguer . . . he is judgment. He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.”

— Walt Whitman

The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by…

— George Steiner

Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.

— William Shenstone

“Reader, I think proper, before we proceed any further together, to acquaint thee that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as often…

— Henry Fielding

A critic is a man who writes about things he doesn't like

— Anonymous

A critic knows more than the author he criticizes, or just as much, or at least somewhat less.

— Henry Edward Manning

A critic is someone who meddles with something that is none of his business.

— Paul Gauguin

For the critic, the author does not exist; only a certain number of writings exist.

— Italo Calvino

We properly judge a critic's virtue not by his freedom from error but by the nature of the mistakes he does make, for he…

— Lionel Trilling