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Criticize   Listen
verb
criticize  v. t.  Same as criticise; as, The paper criticized the new movie.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Criticize" Quotes from Famous Books



... some one should discover it and carry it back to its original sacred abode, you will find the charm has gone from it. Ever since the days of monarchical government the people have looked on the monarch with a sort of divine reverence, and never dared to question or criticize his position. After a period of republicanism, however, this attitude on the part of the common people has been abruptly terminated with no possibility of resurrection. A survey of all the republics of the world will tell us that although a large number of them suffered under ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... about troubled, without replying. It astonished her that the child so soon found something to criticize. But really the child was right: the heat and the pushing and crowding were almost unbearable. Maya saw an endless succession of bees go by in such swarming haste that sometimes one climbed up and over another, or several rolled past together ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels

... Commonwealth appear—he must rank foremost. It is difficult to avoid exaggeration in speaking of these men,—men whose deeds vindicate their words, and whose words are unsurpassed by Greek or Roman fame,—men whom even Hume can only criticize for a "mysterious jargon" which most of them did not use, and for a "vulgar hypocrisy" which few of them practised. Let us not underrate the self-forgetting loyalty of the Royalists,—the Duke of Newcastle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... know what the present generation is coming to," put in Aunt Nettie with what seemed to Missy entire irrelevance. Aunt Nettie was a spinster, even older than Missy's mother, and her lack of understanding and her tendency to criticize and to laugh was especially ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... prove or disprove the doctrine of rebirth [Footnote ref 1]. All schools of philosophy except the Carvakas believed in it and so little is known to us of the Carvaka sutras that it is difficult to say what they did to refute this doctrine. The Buddha also accepts it as a fact and does not criticize it. This life therefore comes only as one which had an infinite number of lives before, and which except in the case of a few emancipated ones would have an infinite number of them in the future. It was strongly believed by all ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... to me extremely well written, William; although, of course, I don't know enough to criticize in detail." ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... minute," she thought. "Remember Amy had him five years." Amy had planted so deep in him the feeling that money is everything; she had got the fever into his blood. And Fanny was there to keep it alive by her flattery of his money success. And for Ethel, even still, it was decidedly unsafe to criticize Joe in some of his moods. As autumn changed to winter, these moods grew much more frequent. What was worrying him? She couldn't find out. She sent for Nourse and asked him, "What's ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... the arrangement seems mathematically and technically perfect. At all events, we know too little to criticize it. Yet one would much like to be told why it was not repeated by any other architect or in any other church. Apparently the Parisians themselves were not quite satisfied with it, since they altered it a hundred years later, in 1296, in order to build ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... shouted that he was harsh and unfair, he answered, What if some exquisite dancing master should stand on the edge of a battle-field where a hero lifted his battle-axe, and criticize him by saying that "his gestures and postures violated the proprieties of polite life!" He added, "When dandies fight they think how they look; when men fight, they think only of deeds." He said that what the ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... E. Rush, of the Twenty-ninth, is a lawyer, and Isaac Hopper, of the Thirty-first, is a big contractor. The downtown leaders wouldn't do uptown, and vice versa. So, you see, these fool critics don't know what they're talkin' about when they criticize Tammany Hall, the most ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt

... that their main objective was the Ypres salient—neither the best nor the easiest route to the sea. What, then, was the motive underlying this particular phase of the German strategic plan? It would be pure presumption—taking that word at its worst meaning—to criticize the deep, long-headed calculations of the German war staff. A reason—and a good reason—there must have been. What the historian cannot explain he may, perhaps, be permitted to speculate upon in order to arrive at some working hypothesis. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... day drew on. The two armies of nearly two hundred thousand men merely sat and stared at each other. Noon passed and the afternoon advanced. Harry yet wondered, as many another did. But it was not for him to criticize. They were led by a man of genius, and the great mind must be working, seeking ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... lucrative position in the Department of Public Instruction. His work in these two positions suffered very materially because of his negligence and daily practice in writing verses and essays for Flaubert, the most careful literary technicist in the history of literature, to criticize. For seven years Maupassant served this severe task-master, always writing, receiving criticisms, ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... may criticize Rapid Dominance as attempting to create a "Mission Impossible Force." To be sure, we emphasize and demand brilliance as the operational goal. However, we also know that the military today is seen ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... not Calhoun's function to criticize when it could be avoided. Med Service had been badly managed in Sector Twelve. So at the banquet Calhoun made a brief and diplomatic address in which he temperately praised what could be praised, and did ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... tell me that if I'd just let things go on—Oh!" He swung away, walking the floor again. "I tell you I did the only right thing! If you don't think so, why in the name of heaven can't you say what else I should have done? It's easy enough to criticize, but the person who criticizes a man ought at least to tell him what else he should have done! You think I ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... the disadvantage of a reputation for disloyalty during the war, and kept out of power for most of the time during the period, were forced into a defensive position where they could complain or criticize, but not present a program of constructive achievement. They denounced the election of 1876 as a great "fraud"; they looked upon the Republicans as the organ of those who demanded class advantages; they condemned the party as wasteful, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... of this Thyrston. And while I do not criticize, yet I cannot entirely agree with your improper use of the pronoun WHOM, and oh my dear sir", said Colombo, "those two VERYS would surely—oh, most surely—be mentioned in ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart

... had a discussion about everything as soon as it was over. They called it "talking it out"; and after they had sinned and suffered punishment, their great delight was to come and coax the tutor "to talk it out." They would then criticize their own conduct and his, impartially, point out what they might have done, and what he might have done, and what ought to have been ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... the studio several times, pausing now and then to turn a canvas about, apparently as if he would criticize it, looking at it but not regarding it, only absently turning one and another as if it were a habit with him to do so; then returning to the table he stirred the envelopes apart with one finger and finally separated one from ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... opinion, give an opinion; decide, try, pronounce, rule; pass judgment, pass sentence; sentence, doom; find; give judgment, deliver judgment; adjudge, adjudicate; arbitrate, award, report; bring in a verdict; make absolute, set a question at rest; confirm &c (assent) 488. comment, criticize, kibitz; pass under review &c (examine) 457; investigate &c (inquire) 461. hold the scales, sit in judgment; try judgment, hear a cause. Adj. judging &c v.; judicious &c (wise) 498; determinate, conclusive. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... as much use for grenades as I have for pink eye," he said almost savagely. "I don't like to criticize, Miss Tish, and I must say I think to this point we've made good. But when I see you stocking up with grenades instead of cigarettes, and giving every indication of being headed for the Rhine, I feel that it is ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... my training consisted in being shown how to criticize myself. I learned to listen, to be critical, to judge my own work; for if it was not up to the mark I must see what was the matter and correct it myself. The earlier this can be learned the better. I attribute much of my subsequent success to this ability. I still carry ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... will criticize our focus on affecting an adversary's will, perception, and understanding through Shock and Awe on the grounds that this idea is not new and that such an outcome may not be physically achievable or ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... straightforwardly about all kinds of topics of general interest, and they are tremendously keen about their games, but I think some people might call them prigs. However, I keep them in a constant and wholesome contempt of their own abilities, and never let them despise or criticize anyone unfavourably; not by 'rebuking' it, but by indicating a point of view—and one can always find one—in which the person under fire is infinitely ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... to be had for the asking. But Flanagan was a splendid seaman, and the admiral would not have exchanged him for the smartest English naval-reserve afloat. There was never a bend in Flanagan's back; royalty and commonalty were all the same to him. And those who came to criticize generally remained to admire; for Flanagan was the kind of sailor fast disappearing from the waters, a man who had learned his seamanship ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... Tommy had ever grasped the actual quality of his friend's character. It seemed to her that Tommy's worship was of too humble a species to afford him a very comprehensive view of the object thereof. She was sure that unlike herself—he would never presume to criticize, would never so much as question any action of Monck's. Her own conception of the man, she was aware, had altered somewhat since that night. She regarded him now with a wholly dispassionate interest. She had attracted him, but she much doubted if the attraction had survived her ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... period Buchanan was content to assume the same attitude towards the Church of Rome that Erasmus maintained. He did not repudiate its doctrines, but considered himself free to criticize its practice. Though he listened with interest to the arguments of the Reformers, he did not join their ranks before 1553. His first production in Scotland, when he was in Lord Cassilis's household in the west country, was the poem Somnium, a satirical attack upon the Franciscan ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... from Louisville, Ky., was a ball-player from the ground up, and as good a second baseman as there was in the profession, the only thing that I ever found to criticize in his play being a tendency to pose for the benefit of the occupants of the grand stand. He was a brilliant player, however, and as good a man in this position according to my estimate as any that ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... handle them with greater authority than any artist who feels the impulse to interpret them. Nobody will ever know what Wagner himself thought of the artists who established the Bayreuth tradition: he was obviously not in a position to criticize them. For instance, had Rubini survived to create Siegmund, it is quite certain that we should not have had from Wagner's pen so amusing and vivid a description as we have of his Ottavio in the old Paris days. Wagner was under great obligations to the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw

... was sent away to school, I expected to learn something of life. But I was disapointed. I do not desire to criticize this Institution of Learning. It is an excellent one, as is shown by the fact that the best Families send their daughters here. But to learn life one must know something of both sides of it, Male and Female. It was, therefore, a matter of deep regret to me to find that, with the exception ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... did on this occasion Was, writing some sad stuff in prose. It is a dangerous invasion 515 When poets criticize; their station Is to delight, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... he declared. "God knows I couldn't criticize you. You ought to know that. This is the nearest we've ever come to a quarrel, dear, since the Barbara Freitchie days, and it's closer than I want to come. Besides, it's not just your laughter that I love. It's all of you: ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... a few mistakes, Regardless of his aim. But never, never criticize And cloud him o'er with blame; For all have failed in many things And keenly feel the smarting stings, Which haunt the mind by day and night Till they ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... there is good ground for it, that both the naval and military men do not realize how much their existence depends on a well-handled and judiciously treated mercantile marine. I have too much regard for every phase of seafaring life to criticize it unfairly, but, except on very rare occasions, I have found naval and military men so profoundly absorbed in their own professions that they do not trouble to regard anything ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... the chairman of the conference and sat at the head of the table. By his side sat our own president, who at that time, towered head and shoulders above the statesmen of the world. Let politicians rave and senators criticize, yet the fact remains that Woodrow Wilson will have a place in history by the side of the ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... "You mustn't criticize our suite!" she said gaily. "This is a combination bedroom, dining-room, and kitchen. I am the cook and housemaid, and Papa Claude is the butler. You ought to see the way I've learned to ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... lessons rests primarily upon interest. If you can secure interest, the children will talk freely; if you retain interest, you can criticize freely and with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... accumulated knowledge and facility in handling a certain kind of affair and the better fitted, therefore, he is to continue and to progress along that line, the less relatively he is able to undertake the affairs of some other kind with which he is not familiar. We commonly feel free to criticize a railroad, a newspaper, a large business house, perhaps a university, with which we may have casual contact, but the fact is there are few competent critics outside of the ranks of the enterprise itself or of those carrying on activities that are directly similar. In a word, through ...
— Creating Capital - Money-making as an aim in business • Frederick L. Lipman

... one. But, as we have just seen, the ideal cannot simply repeat the traits which are actually found. The problem is to extract the desirable traits of forms of community life which actually exist, and employ them to criticize undesirable features and suggest improvement. Now in any social group whatever, even in a gang of thieves, we find some interest held in common, and we find a certain amount of interaction and cooperative intercourse with other groups. From these two traits ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... went off very well, as I hear. No alterations were suggested by the lady to whom it was sent, for as far as I know. Sometimes people criticize the poems one sends them, and suggest all sorts of improvements. Who was that silly body that wanted Burns to alter "Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... thing. He pointed out that the Duke of Edinburgh had been given a naval command without much naval training, and he advocated promotion by merit instead of by claims due to birth. He allowed himself to criticize some large grants of money to the monarchy. His remarks indicated that theoretically he preferred a republic. For this he was denounced by the papers, and socially shunned. He was accused of disloyalty and treason, ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.

... and cumulative effects. Analytic studies, as they are termed, involving the exploration of the meaning of received ideas, must come first in any scheme of genuine education. We must learn to affirm before we can go on to learn how to criticize. But historical studies are a necessary sequel. Other people's received ideas turn out in the light of history to have sometimes worked well, and sometimes not so well; and we are thereupon led to revise our own opinions accordingly. Now the history ...
— Progress and History • Various

... newspapers, church histories, and other church encyclopedias, we must conclude that they have here compiled information of incalculable value. The reader must be impressed too by the scientific disposition of the editors in that they show no inclination to criticize or eulogize, but endeavor ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... most glorious picture here. The Trial of John Huss before the Council of Constance, by Lessing—one of the few things I have seen in painting which have had power deeply to affect me. I have it not in my heart to criticize it as a mere piece of coloring and finish, though in these respects I thought it had great merits. But the picture had the power, which all high art must have, of rebuking and silencing these minor ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... I don't see why I couldn't write better advice to boys than a doddering old man who has only his recollections to draw on. I could criticize the faults that I see before me. Boys need to be shown themselves as they appear to the girls, and I'm not sure but I'll act on Norman's suggestion, and take it up as ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... bade fair to resemble her mother in build, and had already a passion for frills and trimmings, and a contempt for plain things. Mrs. Rainham had an uneasy conviction that the girl who bore all her scathing comments in silence actually dared to criticize her in her own mind—perhaps openly to Bob, whose blue eyes held many unspoken things as he looked at her. Once she had overheard him say to Cecilia: "She looks like an over-ornamented pie!" Cecilia had laughed, and Mrs. Rainham had passed on, unsuspected, ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... says kind Cousin John, who concludes I take an unusual interest in his speculations; and forthwith we proceed to criticize the three animals brought to the post, and to agree that Captain Lovell's Parachute is far the best-looking of the lot; or, as Sir Guy Scapegrace says to the well-pleased owner, "If make and shape go for anything, Frank, she ought to beat them, as ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... the humour, those gossipy letters which have placed him as a classic with Cowper and Lamb. From time to time he would come to London for a visit to a picture gallery or an evening with his friends; and for many years he never failed to write once a year for news of the poet, whose books he might criticize capriciously, but whose image was always fresh in his affectionate heart. Of his old Cambridge circle Tennyson honoured, above all others, 'his domeship' James Spedding, of the massive rounded head, of the rare judgement ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... weave some of your heart spells for me, dearest dear Betty [Peter wrote], I am sending you the manuscript of Act I and part of Act II, and I know you will read them carefully and let me know fully what you think of them. Criticize them from your splendid human viewpoint. The dear old governor has been rather hard on me of late, and I may have to go into the office yet. Death! Help, rescue me, dear, for to put a play across will be my salvation from his prejudices. I must do it this ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... wearing anxiety, and though she was often as merry and kittenish as ever her habitual manner was that of a strong, quick temperament kept in check. The restraint showed in everything. She was much more ready to hear and much less ready to criticize, her humorous talk was freer from sarcasm, her whole bearing characterized by a sort of quiet steadfastness which made her curiously like her father. His philosophical calm had indeed been gained in a very different ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... owned that Burr's case offered Marshall a tempting opportunity to try out the devotion of Republicans to that ideal of judicial deportment which had led them so vehemently to criticize Justice Chase and to charge him with being "oppressive," with refusing to give counsel for defense an opportunity to be heard, with transgressing the state law of procedure, with showing too great liking for Common Law ideas of sedition, with setting up the President as ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... interval Carlisle said: "I wonder how many of the people who criticize would put Turkish baths and—and dens in the Works if they had to do it out of their own pockets.... Why under ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... people. Like every other good citizen, he extended hearty support to the President in his conduct of America's foreign relations in the crisis. At the same time, however, he recognized the possibility that a time might come when it would be a higher moral duty to criticize the Administration than to continue unqualified support. Three weeks after war had begun, Roosevelt wrote in ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland

... does not seem to follow that, because the moralist may not set up an arbitrary code of this sort, he is also forbidden to criticize and compare moral judgments, to arrange existing codes in a certain order as lower and higher, to frame some notion of what constitutes progress. He may hold before himself, in outline, at least, an ideal of conduct, and not one taken up arbitrarily ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... long in bed yielding to sloth. O God, help and strengthen me that I may walk in Thy ways! Read the Scriptures, but without proper feeling. Brother Urusov came and we talked about worldly vanities. He told me of the Emperor's new projects. I began to criticize them, but remembered my rules and my benefactor's words—that a true Freemason should be a zealous worker for the state when his aid is required and a quiet onlooker when not called on to assist. My tongue is my enemy. Brothers G. V. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... young patricians spent the time as agreeably as might be in Cesena during that carnival. The author of the Diario Cesenate is moved by the duke's pastimes to criticize him severely as indulging in amusements unbecoming the dignity of his station. He is particularly shocked to know that the duke should have gone forth in disguise with a few companions to repair to carnival festivities in the surrounding villages and there to wrestle ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... unkind to criticize so very instructive an address but there is one thing laid down in that paper I wish to speak about. I believe we were told we must cultivate our nut trees. I believe the fact is that in the greater portion of the United States, we can grow ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various

... awakened their spiritual life at the first of his preaching. Your father was always a stanch believer, but when he started on his mission and went to Parsonsfield to help Elder Cochrane in his meetings, the neighbors began to criticize him. They doubted him. You were too young to realize it, but I did, and it almost ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... a dreary gulf enough now to the young man, as he stood leaning over the rails above it, beating the herbage with his stick. For some minutes he could not criticize or weigh her conduct; the warmth of her presence still encircled him. He recalled her face as it had looked out at him from under the white silk puffing of her black hat, and the speaking power of her eyes at the moment of danger. The breadth ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... materials, his distribution of lights and shades, his selection of the matters to be recorded and commented upon, will involve a subjective coloring of his narrative. This being so, one cannot reasonably criticize Schiller for having his point of view, but only for taking too little trouble in the gathering and verification of his facts. He did not think it important to study his subject from first-hand sources of information. He quotes more than a score of authorities in Latin, French and German, but he ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... thought the design a sufficiently imposing one as it stood, even extravagantly ornate; but, feeling that he had no right to criticize, he said gently, 'Downe, should you not live more in your children's lives at the present time, and soften the sharpness of regret for your own past by thinking ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... editor are exceptional, since he was reared in an environment of nineteenth-century seamen, and is the only landsman I have met who is able to render shanties as the old seamen did. I am not musician enough to criticize his pianoforte accompaniments, but I can vouch for the authenticity of the melodies as he presents them, ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry

... you very much. Your public record and private life prove you to be one of God's noblest—and rarest—works, an honest man. That you are the equal morally and the superior mentally of any man who has presumed to criticize you must be conceded. The prejudices of honesty are entitled to consideration and the judgment of genius to respect bordering on reverence; but in this age of almost universal inquiry we cannot accept any man, however wise, as infallible pope in the realm of intellect and declare that from ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... sovereign states that would parallel the judicial functions successfully asserted by Innocent III. No Christian Church to-day so rises above the national states of Europe, as to control or even adequately to criticize the claims of those states. The Churches no longer serve to embody and ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... seeing, 'that the proper and sole purpose of the Author, was, not to abridge the Greek Criticks, whom he probably never thought of; nor to amuse himself with composing a short critical system, for the general use of poets, which every line of it absolutely confutes; but, simply to criticize the Roman drama.' For to this end, not the tenor of the work only, but as will appear, every single precept in it, ultimately refers. The mischiefs of this original error have been long felt. It hath occasioned a constant perplexity in ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... influence as beneficial. It necessarily was not without the weaknesses that characterized the Lutheran Church in America at that time. One who ignores the entire historical development will find much to criticize and condemn, when examined from the standpoint of what is demanded by consistency with accurate theological definitions and clear conceptions of church polity. But he will find just as much that incurs the same ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... wrote a preface for his show at Carfax: he is pre-eminently solid and architectural, and obviously he is highly sensitive—by which I mean that his reactions to what he sees are intense and peculiar. But these reactions, one fancies, he likes to take home, meditate, criticize, and reduce finally to a rigorously definite conception. And this conception he has the power to translate into a beautifully logical and harmonious form. Power he seems never to lack: it would be almost ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... forced by the doctor's importunity to leave the room at twelve. If you are alone there for one minute (and you will be allowed to remain there alone if you show no haste to consult the doctor) unlock that box—here is the key—and look carefully inside. No one will interfere and no one will criticize you; there is more than one person who has ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... nor prepared to take sides for or against the new hypothesis, and so, perhaps, occupy a good position from which to watch the discussion, and criticize those objections which are seemingly inconclusive. On surveying the arguments urged by those who have undertaken to demolish the theory, we have been most impressed with a sense of their great inequality. Some strike us as excellent and perhaps unanswerable; some, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... 'Don't criticize me for coming alone,' she exclaimed with sensitive promptness. 'There are social reasons for what I do of ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy

... must promptly retire—or be retired. The combat continues until the second whistle, blown not more than 30 seconds after contact; when they cease fighting promptly, separate, and form as before. c. Criticism: After each combat, the instructor will criticize the manner of advance and of fighting, especially the alignment kept in the advance and the team work in combat, and the advantage taken of opponents' mistakes. He counts the casualties and awards the ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... claim was great, came down to breakfast the next morning with a return of energy that gladdened Helen and set Miriam thinking swiftly of all the things she had left undone. But Mildred Caniper was fair, and where she no longer ruled, she would not criticize. She condescended, ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... subject, I've been in the Philippines and have published a book and a number of articles about them, and, although I don't take as gloomy a view as you do about the administration out there, I found a good deal to criticize, and if I go out I can certainly describe the conditions as they are now, and your editorial writers can put my articles to ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland

... possibilities. He was about to consult his associates when it struck him that the greatest caution he could possibly observe would consist of holding his own tongue now and henceforth. They had seen fit to criticize his handling of the matter thus far; he decided he would play safe and say nothing until he had first seen Sir Thomas Drummond and learned the lay of the land. He imagined he might then have something electrifying to tell ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... that she had managed the reception badly, that she had not done or said the right thing. Peter's attitude had shown that he felt the situation had been clumsily handled, and it was she who was responsible for it. Peter was too kind to criticize her, but she had vowed in the muffled depths of a feverish pillow that there should be no more flagrant flaws in the conduct ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... married my mother, which always seems unfair to her anyway. Somehow I can never think of father as ever having been a kind man, and I've no doubt that poor mother had anything but an easy time of it with him. However, it is not for me to criticize." She paused, but went on almost immediately. "Let me see, it was directly after the honeymoon that he went away on his last trading trip. He was to call at Java. Jake was his mate, you know, and they were expecting to return ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... really considerable genius for the science that he had adopted; besides discovering three of the latest of the telescopic planets, he had worked out the elements of the three hundred and twenty-fifth comet in the catalogue; but his chief delight was to criticize the publications of other astronomers, and he was never better pleased than when he detected a ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... are henceforth," she laughed. "Just fancy you, of all people, leading a double life under the name of Bill Jones!" and again she laughed so merrily that he joined in without reserve. Fortunately there was none near save a staid old waiter to criticize their freedom, and ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... Blas', bk. vii. chap, iv., where Gil Blas ventures to criticize the Archbishop's work, and is dismissed for ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... was the inspirer of writers. Burke devoured Bolingbroke, and when he took up his pen, wrote with the same magnificent, stately minuet step. Finally he was full of the essence of Bolingbroke to the point of saturation, and then he began to criticize him. Had Bolingbroke been alive Burke would have quarreled with him—they were so much alike. As it was, Burke contented himself by writing a book after the style of Bolingbroke, carrying the great man's arguments one step further with intent to show their fallacy. The paraphrase is always a complement, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... your knowledge, not through your logic, not through your metaphysics. To understand it you have to divine, not to define; you have to observe, not to calculate; you have to sympathize, not to analyze; you have to see through, not to criticize; you have not to explain, but to feel; you have not to abstract, but to grasp; you have to see all in each, but not to know all in all; you have to get directly at the soul of things, penetrating their hard crust of matter by your rays of the innermost ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... with us?" asked Grace, a trifle impatiently. "Here we are prowling about the bush, trying to conceal under polite inquiry the fact that we don't quite approve of Miss West. We would actually like to dig up something to criticize." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... at Green Hill, Eleanor's dislike of Edith had no chance to break into silent flames, for the girl was so quiet that not even Eleanor could see anything in her behavior to Maurice to criticize. It was ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... to a favourable criticism, and almost every one objects to an unfavourable one. All men ought, no doubt, to be thankful for a just criticism; but I am afraid they are not. As a result, to criticize is to be unpopular. Nevertheless, it is better to be unpopular than ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... awake, her face sallow and lifeless in the morning light, but now he did not compare her with Tanis; she was not merely A Woman, to be contrasted with other women, but his own self, and though he might criticize her and nag her, it was only as he might criticize and nag himself, interestedly, unpatronizingly, without the expectation of changing—or any real ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... proofs, the binding, title, and final advertisement—engaged his closest attention. Besides the elegant appearance of his books, he also aimed at raising the standard of the literature which he published. He had to criticize as well as to select; to make suggestions as to improvements where the manuscript was regarded with favour, and finally to launch the book at the right time and under the best possible auspices. It might almost be said of the ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... which repressed the painful complex in the first place still shrink from uncovering it. In many cases the resistance is very strong. It, therefore, often happens that after a time the patient becomes restive; he begins to criticize the doctor and to ridicule the method. His mind goes blank and no thought will come; or he refuses to tell what does come. The nearer the probe comes to the sore spot, the greater the pain of the repressing impulses and the stronger the resistance. Usually a strange thing happens; the patient, ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... slavery. To many, the offence lies in the mere fact; to others, it lies in the operation of the system. At all events, the institution is no longer tolerated in any civilized country. While some to whom the system itself was a bitter offence have found much to criticize in its operation in Cuba, the general opinion of observers appears to be that it was there notably free from the brutality usually supposed to attend it. The Census Report of 1899, prepared under the auspices of the American authorities, ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson

... for the student of public speaking is to read aloud daily, taking care to read as he would speak. He should choose one of the standard writers, such as Stevenson, Ruskin, Newman, or Carlyle, and while reading severely criticize his delivery. Such reading should be done standing up and as if addressing an audience. This simple exercise will, in the course of a few weeks, yield ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... did not think it wise to criticize the unknown Mrs. Scammel or to allow the woman's small daughter to do so. So she changed the subject to more pleasant and interesting topics and the afternoon wore ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... beating heart, I realized that I as well as Bertha was in the grip of circumstances against which rebellion was as futile as were thoughts of escape. There was no one to aid and no one to forbid or criticize. Whatever I might do to save her from the fate ordained for her would of necessity be worked out between us, unaided and unhampered by the ethics of civilization as I had known it ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... historical interest may be not only retrospective but contemporary. The reader of the present volume will appreciate "How to Criticize a Poem (In the Manner of Certain Contemporary Poets)", a critique of the mnemonic rhyme "Thirty days hath September," in the New Republic, ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe

... promising girl—she was confirmed this year; and I think you will be able to enter into my feelings as a parent when I tell you she is quite ignorant of dancing. The boys are at the board school, which is all very well in its way; at least, I am the last man in the world to criticize the institutions of my native land. But I had fondly hoped that Harold might become a professional musician; and little Otho shows a quite remarkable vocation for the Church. I am not exactly an ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... been disfigured with reference-marks. And rather than make the book unwieldy I have eschewed notes—reluctantly when some obscure passage or allusion seemed to ask for a timely word; with more equanimity when the temptation was to criticize or 'appreciate.' For the function of the anthologist ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... seat in the saddle that was not the ordinary, graceful native balance and yet was full of grace. King ascribed the difference to the fact that the Rangar had seen no military service, and before the inadequacy of that explanation had asserted itself he had already forgotten to criticize in sheer admiration. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... gains in education, job opportunity, and housing would be nullified by federal legislation supporting segregation. How could a Fair Employment Practices Commission, he asked, dare criticize discrimination in industry if the government itself was discriminating against Negroes in the services? "Negroes are just sick and tired of being pushed around," he concluded, "and we just do not propose to take it, and we ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... does the fertilizer itself stimulate the growth of plants, but fertilizer increases the microbial population. More microbes accelerate the breakdown of humus and even more plant nutrients are released as organic matter decays. And that is why holistic farmers and gardeners mistakenly criticize chemical fertilizers as being directly destructive of soil microbes. Actually, all fertilizers, chemical or organic, indirectly harm soil life, first increasing their populations to unsustainable levels that drop off markedly once enough organic matter ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... good-nature, and the slap-dash sociability of her friends, who treated Lily precisely as they treated each other—all these characteristic notes of difference began to wear upon her endurance; and the more she saw to criticize in her companions, the less justification she found for making use of them. The longing to get back to her former surroundings hardened to a fixed idea; but with the strengthening of her purpose came the inevitable perception that, to attain it, she must exact ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... laud, extol, commend, eulogize, panegyrize, applaud; magnify, glorify. Antonyms: condemn, denounce, disparage, deprecate, criticize. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... He modelled little statuettes in wax, cupids and nymphs, and he designed covers for books. He could do all these things a little, and not stupidly, although inefficiently. He had been a volunteer, and therefore wrote on military subjects, and had on certain occasions been permitted to criticize our naval defences and point out the vices and shortcomings in our military system in the leading evening papers. He was generally seen with a newspaper under his arm going towards Charing Cross or Fleet Street. He never strayed further ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... SIR:—Your despatch of yesterday has been received, and it disappoints and distresses me. I have shown it to General McClellan, who says he will write you to-day. I am not competent to criticize your views, and therefore what I offer is in justification of myself. Of the two, I would rather have a point on the railroad south of Cumberland Gap than Nashville. First, because it cuts a great artery of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... difficulty, viz.: To assert that he has accomplished the object of his expedition to Mexico, and hence to end it. While we laugh at the absurdity of his premises, we can hardly find fault with his conclusion, and hence it is not worth while to criticize any part of his argument. Rather I think it well to let him make the most of his audacity in the creation of convenient facts. The opinion seems to be universal here that the Emperor is sincere in his declarations of intention ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... don't quite know why they were called 'nymphs,' for nymphs and naiads had gone out of fashion when they reigned here as Queens of Beauty, in the sixteenth century. But perhaps in those days to call a girl a 'nymph' was to pay her a compliment. It wouldn't be now, when chaps criticize the 'nymphery' if they go to a dance! Anyhow, these eight sisters, were renowned for their loveliness, and all the unmarried gentlemen of France—according to the story—as well as foreign knights, came to pay court to them. The unfortunate thing ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... speak a word more to Philip than she could help, and wondered how she could ever have liked Molly at all, much less have made a companion of her. The table was now laid out, and nothing remained but to criticize the ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... no need of fear," broke in the deep voice of the gentleman who had escorted her thither, and who now observed her perturbation. "We shall not harm you—I think not even criticize you seriously. Our wish is wholly for your ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... besides, you know you can't prove anything serious against her. Her married women friends go about with men, and for you to object would only make you ridiculous. They sneer at women like me, I know; but Lord, they can't criticize me! I am myself, that's all. I can be a friend, and I can be an enemy. I want ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... set free by her consciousness of sun and brown earth, so Milt's odyssey was only the more valorous in his endeavor to criticize life. He saw that Mac's lunch room had not been an altogether satisfactory home; that Mac's habit of saying to dissatisfied customers, "If you don't like it, get out," had lacked something of courtesy. Staring at towns along the way, Milt saw that houses were not merely large and comfortable, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... necessary curves of the planets which compose their eccentricities and their orbits. I demonstrate that light has neither body nor spirit; I demonstrate that it comes in an instant from its respective star; I demonstrate the impossibility of many parallaxes and the uselessness of many others. I criticize not only Tiko-Brahi, but also Kepler and Newton ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the general spirit and temper of the religious press with reference to science and scientific men, there is much to criticize and condemn. It is often snappish, petulant, ill-humored, unfair, and sometimes malicious in the extreme. Such opprobrious terms as infidelity, irreligion, rationalizing tendencies, naturalism, contempt for the Scriptures, etc., are freely used. Scientific ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... his hand grasped hers, she forgot to criticize. "I say, please don't!" he said. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything. It was jolly plucky of you to stand your ground with ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... more might have been done, the Boston Association has no cause to be ashamed of its history. Beginning with all ready to criticize, and many disapproving, the Association has worked itself into the confidence of the community; and the Reverend Joseph Cook, who was introduced as a lecturer to Boston under its auspices, thus speaks of the Association at the close of ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... disappeared, we criticize our coffee. "Talk about clear! You can see the sugar ambling round the bottom of the glass."—"She charges six sous ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... the most radical of my materialistic pieces to three men of science, all great authorities, one of whom replied, that he was in substantial agreement with me, but thought me to be 400 years ahead of our time; another, that he found nothing to criticize unless it might be my failure to give greater prominence to the fact that the gods of the redemptive interpretations, of religion were so many versions of the sun-myth, and the other, that the essay would pass any world congress of scientists ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... criticize school or college athletics often forget that the observance of the strict rules of training required from every member of a team is the very best way to keep a boy healthy ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... endurance, the least courage, the smallest virtue. And finally, as to moral evil, which is sin, God can even less desire that it should exist, but He can admit its existence, allow it to be, to afford men occasion for merit or demerit. Nothing is more easy than to criticize God whilst considering only a portion of His work and not considering it as a whole. He must have created it to be a whole and it is as a whole that it must be judged. And precisely because the whole cannot ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... is not so impervious to criticism as you are. Don't over-criticize his apparent attitude to the War. Remember you are talking to a man whose patience under such outrages as the sinking of the Lusitania has been strained to the uttermost; so don't ask him whether he is too ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay

... "I knew that he would do it. That's why I told you to watch him. The other man is Winthrop. He's an editor, too—one of our Richmond papers. He isn't a genius like Raymond, but he's a slashing writer—loves to criticize anybody from the President down, and he often does it. He belongs to the F. F. V.'s himself, but he has no mercy on them—shows up all their faults. While you can say that gambling is Raymond's amusement, you may say with equal truth that ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... my orders from the Keeper of the Seals, to effect the apprehension of Monsieur de Lesperon; and to deliver him up, alive or dead, at Toulouse. So that I do this, the manner of it is my own affair, and who presumes to criticize my methods censoriously impugns my honour and affronts me. And who affronts me, monsieur, be he whosoever he may be, renders me satisfaction. I beg that you will ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... a minute," said Mary Louise, refusing the proffered chair and giving the room a hasty, critical look. Even in that critical look she could find naught to criticize. The cabin was a small three-room affair, set back from the street, between two vacant old storehouses. Zeke had whitewashed it without and calcimined it within, and with the free air that circulated the place this treatment ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... gloomy grandeurs of Glencoe, and, as Coleridge once said when he saw Thomson's Seasons lying in a Welsh wayside inn, 'That is true fame,' I thought this was fame truer still. [Applause.] It is too late in the day to criticize Uncle Tom's Cabin, or to speculate on its unprecedented history—a history which seems absolutely magical. Why, you are reminded of Aladdin's lamp, and of the palace that was reared by genii in one night. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... together. It has Beauty—the book, the theme and treatment alike, is magnificently mature, and is really a delightful thing to have been able to do—to have laid at the old golden door of the beloved Italy. You deserve well of her. I can't "criticize"—though I could (that is, I did—but can't do it again)—rewrite. The thing's infinitely delightful and distinguished, and that's enough. The success of it, specifically, to my sense is Eleanor, admirably sustained in the "high-note" way, without a break or ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... which I wish to make here is also a rectification but of a less direct kind. It has nothing to do with the medium of expression. It bears on the matter of my authorship in another way. It is not for me to criticize my judges, the more so because I always felt that I was receiving more than justice at their hands. But it seems to me that their unfailingly interested sympathy has ascribed to racial and historical influences ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad



Words linked to "Criticize" :   take to task, have words, rebuke, chew out, remark, dress down, assail, pass judgment, find fault, lash out, lambast, critic, assault, reprove, blame, disparage, pick at, pillory, reprehend, attack, reproof, act, lecture, blast, admonish, trounce, nitpick, comment, notice, censure, chew up, reprimand, round, criticise, knock, harsh on, pick, call down, deplore, berate, belabour, denounce, chide, evaluate, savage, criminate, bawl out, rag, belabor, jaw, judge, snipe, lambaste, point out, pick apart, belittle, crucify, call on the carpet



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