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Criticize   /krˈɪtɪsˌaɪz/   Listen
Criticize

verb
1.
Find fault with; express criticism of; point out real or perceived flaws.  Synonyms: criticise, knock, pick apart.  "Don't knock the food--it's free"
2.
Act as a critic.  Synonym: criticise.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Criticize" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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 with the rustics. ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... referring to the extreme cases. I have taken from this man that trumpery thing which the race regards as a Mind; I have replaced his tin life with a silver-gilt fiction; you see the result—and you criticize! I said I would make him permanently happy, and I have done it. I have made him happy by the only means possible to his race—and you are not satisfied!" He heaved a discouraged sigh, and said, "It seems to me that this ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... laboring under 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 United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... in my heart to criticize the character of the Boers at a time when they have held on so bravely in a desperate war, and have suffered so much. There are Boers and Boers,—good and bad among them,—as among all nations. We have heard of kind and generous actions towards ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... to a crowd of natives. Suddenly I heard the word kuda. Fortunately kuda (horse) was one of the words I knew: and I at once ordered the kuda to be brought. Half a dozen natives set off to find it. It turned out to be a very diminutive pony, but I was not prepared to criticize. ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... our business," the supervisor cautioned. "We just take the reports. Can't criticize us for whatever the E.H.Q. ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... 1763 on the aquiescence of practically all Englishmen. It was accepted by middle and lower classes alike as normal and admirable; and only a small body of radicals felt called upon to criticize the exclusion of the mass of taxpayers from a share in the government. Pitt, in Parliament, was ready to proclaim a national will as something distinct from the voice of the borough-owners, but he had few followers. Only in London and a few counties did sundry advocates of parliamentary reform ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... 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 ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... ordinarily feel disposed to criticize the articles of our contributors; nor do we feel disposed now to do more than to offer a brief suggestion in reference to a philosophical position assumed by the author of an interesting article in our ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... sole evidence we possess: Chinese critics were the sole critics of that evidence; and they are the sole light by which we foreigners can become critics. The great Chinese defect in criticism is the failure to work out general principles, and to criticize constructively as well as analytically. Their history is a rule of thumb, hand to mouth, diary sort of arrangement, like a vast museum of genuine but unclassified and unticketed objects. But there is no good reason whatever ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... 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 ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... disturbing nor a vital influence in my life. My mother was my ideal of goodness. I have never known her speak an angry or unkind word. Sitting here looking back on over fifty years of life, I cannot pick out one thing to criticize in ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... oral language 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

... you are wrong there. There's nothing funny in nature, however funny it may seem to man with his prejudices. If dogs could reason and criticize us they'd be sure to find just as much that would be funny to them, if not far more, in the social relations of men, their masters—far more, indeed. I repeat that, because I am convinced that there is far more foolishness among us. That's Rakitin's idea—a remarkable ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Peltrie's Catholic biographers. Charlevoix tells the story without comment, but with apparent approval. Sainte-Foi, in his Premires Ursulines de France, says, that, as God had taken her under His guidance, we should not venture to criticize her. Casgrain, in his Vie de ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... so, it follows, quite logically and justly, that the Chinese servant resents the minute and detailed supervision some housewives delight in. Show him what you want done; let him do it; criticize the result—but do not stand around and make suggestions and offer amendments. Some housekeepers, trained to make of housekeeping an end rather than a means, can never keep Chinese. This does not mean that you must let them go at ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... Sophrony!" ejaculated her friend, "with me to sponsor you, I don't guess anybody in this neighborhood will undertake to criticize." ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... 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 ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... out, as the not 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 defining the general ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... call to criticize," he went on, as Tony did not answer. "If you want to know, I can tell you; and there's a heap of things you'd give your head to know now, I take it. I've heard many a tale I don't repeat, and I could make most people look rather foolish if I wanted to. When you go out to the Flat next time just ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... agreed that perhaps it was best to wait. And I am sure it is best, Jed. But then, I mean to put the whole dreadful business from my mind, if I can, and be happy with my little girl and my brother. And I am happy; I feel almost like a girl myself. So you mustn't remind me, Jed, and you mustn't criticize me, even though you and I both know you are right. You are my only confidant, you know, and I don't know what in the world I should do without you, so try to bear with me, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... in the border-land were listened to without scorn. They might be ever so absent-minded and yet have stumbled upon something which wiser men had missed. No one was more keen to criticize the hard-and-fast dogmas of the wise and prudent or more willing to learn what might, by chance, have been revealed unto babes. The one thing he demanded was space. His universe must not be finished or inclosed. After a rational system had been formulated and declared to be ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... get closer to it. A tempest at sea, and a thunderstorm on the steppes! I know nothing grander in nature. And so I shouted to my heart's content, in the absolute belief that I troubled no one, nor placed any one in a position to criticize my action. But suddenly, I felt my legs seized, and I fell helpless into ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... "Nobody will dare accuse her of wrongdoing. She's a noble girl. No one will dare to criticize her for what she ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... 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 Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... but the approval, the sympathy, and the devotion of true hearts. It is not necessary that this affection come from the great and the powerful. If it be genuine, that is all the heart asks. It does not criticize and graduate the value of the fountains from which it springs. It is at these fountains particularly that the unfortunates of the world are permitted to drink. They have only to accept cheerfully the conditions ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... 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 laying at the King's feet seven hundred thousand ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... two groups of people who criticize the Church. First, there are those who claim great love for their fellow-men, but do not go to church because it is allied with the property interests of the community. I believe that to be the fundamental reason why the wage workers, labour leaders, socialists and radicals ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson

... among thoughtful men on this side of the Channel at a time when his name had not yet in France emerged from obscurity. So unknown and unappreciated was he at the time when my Logic was written and published, that to criticize his weak points might well appear superfluous, while it was a duty to give as much publicity as one could to the important contributions he had made to philosophic thought. At the time, however, at which I have now arrived, this state of affairs had entirely ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... bedroom—that little room under the blazing tin roof which you reserve for your relatives—and make up the bed fifteen or twenty times, carefully unmaking it between times and placing the clothes away in a regular position. Let your family nag at you and criticize you during each moment of the job—while somebody plays an obbligato on the electric bell and places shoes and leather grips underneath your feet. Imagine the house is bumping and rocking—and keep a smiling face and a courteous tongue throughout ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... just shut up jawing," I answered, as I hunted round for my gown; "when I want you to criticize my friends I will tell you. Foster's worth about ten billion of ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... experience, however, and he discovered that an apprentice to an architect was not expected to furnish plans or even criticize those already made: his business was to make detail drawings from completed designs for the contractors to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... interrupted quietly, "suppose we don't criticize Shirley. I shan't criticize you, either. I blame myself for letting her come here. Now we're going ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller

... had not been a popular governor since the appointment of his son-in-law to the office of provincial secretary. The House of Assembly, therefore, was disposed to watch his conduct very closely and to criticize actions which perhaps would not have attracted so much attention under other conditions. During the session of 1846, it was shown that he had appropriated a portion of the surplus civil list fund, amounting to about three thousand ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... the Biographia Literaria are placed next to the Wordsworthian doctrines which they criticize; otherwise the arrangement of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... I said earnestly, "but I have seen all kinds of life, both right and wrong, upper and lower. I can realize how easy it is to sit in a club window, and criticize the people passing along the street. That is an amusement of fools. The inclination to become one of that class left me long ago. Now I do not understand why you were upon the street tonight unattended; why you came to my assistance, or why you ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... then whose judgment the right course would steer, Know well each ANCIENT'S proper character; His fable, subject, scope in ev'ry page; 120 Religion, Country, genius of his Age: Without all these at once before your eyes, Cavil you may, but never criticize. Be Homer's works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night; 125 Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring. Still with itself compar'd, his text peruse; And let your ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... 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 ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... man will begrudge occasional holiday-makers their chance of seeing a good race. Rural and industrial Yorkshire are represented by thousands at Doncaster, on the St. Ledger day, and the tourists get no particular harm; they are horsey to the backbone, and they come to see the running. They criticize the animals and gain topics for months of conversation, and, if they bet an odd half-crown and never go beyond it, perhaps no one is much the worse. When the Duke of Portland allowed his tenantry to see St. Simon gallop five years ago at Newcastle, the pitmen and artisans thronged to look ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... expresses a momentary irritation at the accusation which the Athenian brings against the Spartan institutions, of encouraging licentiousness in their women, but he is reminded by the Cretan that the permission to criticize them freely has been given, and cannot be retracted. His only criterion of truth is the authority of the Spartan lawgiver; he is 'interested,' in the novel speculations of the Athenian, but inclines to ...
— Laws • Plato

... 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 ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... should be surprised if that poem were born to an immortality of oblivion." "It is a highly wrought PIECE OF ART, and perhaps better, in point of composition, than anything I have written." "It is absurd in any review to criticize 'Adonais', and still more to pretend that the verses are bad." "I know what to think of 'Adonais', but what to think of those who confound it with the many bad poems of the day, I know not." Again, alluding to the stanzas hurled against the infamous "Quarterly" ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... not fair to charge the minister with being professional, nor to say that in his appeal he is perfunctory. Nor is it always just to criticize those who are in the church, for not speaking to the unsaved, for there may be an explanation. Sometimes we feel a sense of our own unworthiness. There are business men who know that if they should speak to their employees, the first speech would have to be a confession of ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman

... the rules on letter ritin is off an we can say where we are. The only thing we cant do is criticize the army. I dont know where we are an I couldnt spell it anyhow so theres not ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter

... Ben Jonson was not a critic, and if he had been there was little enough art in his time in England for him to criticize, still he expresses the general feeling of the public for ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... stopped in front of the shooting galleries to criticize the shots and interested himself specially in a very simple game which consisted in throwing a big wooden ball into the open mouth of a mannikin carved and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... Saturday morning for Spain, cross the Pyrenees on mules, and rest at Bordeaux on Sunday. Get back to Paris on Monday (Monday is always a good day for the opera), and on Tuesday evening you will be at home, and glad to get there. Don't give her time to criticize you until she has got used to you. No man will bear unprotected exposure to a young girl's eyes. The honeymoon is the matrimonial microscope. Wobble it. Confuse it with many objects. Cloud it with other interests. ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... don't see where you fellows get off to criticize," retorted the harassed youth. "I never saw any of you win gold medals for hard and ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman

... hollow, became round, strong, and flexible. I then went to a student in the class above my own, a natural and forcible speaker, and made an arrangement with him to hear me pronounce my oration, from time to time, and to criticize it in a common-sense way. This he did. At passages where he thought my manner wrong, he raised his finger, gave me an imitation of my manner, then gave the passage in the way he thought best, and allowed me to choose between his and mine. The result was ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... activity which foreshadows an aspect under which the New Republic will emerge is to be found in the unofficial organizations that have come into existence in Great Britain to watch and criticize various public departments. There is, for example, the Navy League, a body of intelligent and active persons with a distinctly expert qualification which has intervened very effectively in naval control during the last few ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... wise persons do not apply such adjectives to dukes. And wise persons do not criticize Count Eglamore's appearance, either, now that Eglamore is indispensable to the ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell

... hurt your feelings when I criticize the home of my youth? But you have the upper hand, you know, for if I become too impertinent, you can always stop payment of your cheques. That isn't a very polite thing to say—but you can't expect me to have any manners; a foundling asylum isn't ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster

... profound dismay at the corner into which Servia was driven; much as she resented this proposal, the fact that she was entirely dependent on the Entente—whose high-handed methods he did not fail to criticize—forced ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... found, is a forgery from the Polyglot of Alcala, according to Mr. Norton, in his recent work, "The Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels," (Boston, 1837, vol. i. Additional Notes, p. xxxix.),—a work which few can be fully competent to criticize, but which no person can peruse without confessing the acuteness and strength of its reasoning, the nice discrimination of its criticism, and the precision and purity of its diction. Whatever difference of opinion may be formed as to some of its conclusions, no one ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... so used to this tragedy that we hardly know how to criticize it any more than we should know how to describe our own faces. But we must make such observations as we can. It is the one of Shakespeare's plays that we think of oftenest, because it abounds most in striking reflections on human life, and because the distresses of Hamlet are transferred, by ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... are unjust, after all," thought Grace. "I suppose I have no right to criticize him so severely, even though he was rude to me the other night. I was rude, too. Perhaps he ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... without becoming bondwomen: into what a slavery! For herself, her trial was over, she thought. As for herself, she merely complained of a prematureness and crudity best unanalyzed. In truth, she could hardly be said to complain. She did but criticize him and wonder that a man was unable to perceive, or was not arrested by perceiving, unwillingness, discordance, dull compliance; the bondwoman's due instead of the bride's consent. Oh, sharp distinction, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

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

... 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 ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... make the dish successfully. When they can do this, they are free to experiment with modifications, and there should be no objection to receiving help from any source; in fact, it is a good thing for the daughter to get her mother to criticize her and offer suggestions in the many little details familiar to every housekeeper, but which cannot always be given by an instructor ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... Kirk indignantly, and even Mamie forbore to criticize. She bent over the White Hope and gave his grapefruit-stained cheek ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... a book. The experience of reading it has left something behind, and these relics we call by the book's name; but how can they be considered to give us the material for judging and appraising the book? Nobody would venture to criticize a building, a statue, a picture, with nothing before him but the memory of a single glimpse caught in passing; yet the critic of literature, on the whole, has to found his opinion upon little more. Sometimes it is possible to return ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... going to make a serious business of this affair. Arthur felt his temper rising. A patronising disposition always has its meaner side, and in the confusion of his irritation and alarm there entered the feeling that a man to whom he had shown so much favour as to Adam was not in a position to criticize his conduct. And yet he was dominated, as one who feels himself in the wrong always is, by the man whose good opinion he cares for. In spite of pride and temper, there was as much deprecation as anger in his voice when he said, "What ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... admire 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 ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... my say two years ago when I 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 impossible to paint better. I do not know which of Marchand's three pictures is the ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... brilliantine could do to make the ponderous, big woman more ghastly had been done, but in the rush of the long ride through which her husband had forced her, the colors had mixed and slipped, the false waves were displaced. She was not in any condition to criticize the appearance of another woman. For one second Eileen hesitated, then she lifted her ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... been done, not selectively, and there have been witnesses who have plainly, unequivocally, acknowledged their fault, their error. There has not in any way been a parade of witnesses all seeking to criticize the flight crew and thus, as it were, exonerate themselves. There has been an endeavour, without selection, to reveal all the evidence to ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan

... a man in a dress-suit to open the door. The rest of us—our wives answer the door-bell themselves. Our folks are kind of afraid to invite Mr. and Mrs. Shelby to their parties for fear they'll criticize; so Mrs. Shelby feels as if she ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... have been, how they came into being, and what function they have served in human life. Thus we shall be sure that our theory is in touch with reality, and be saved from mere closet-philosophies and irrelevant speculations. Our task in this First Part will be not to criticize by reference to any ethical standards, but to observe and describe, as a mere bit of preliminary sociology, what it is in their lives to which men have given the name "morality," of what use it has been, and through the action ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... is to come of the return of Lona and Johan, but we have no inkling as to what that something may be. If we guess that the so-called black sheep of the family will prove to be the white sheep, it is only because we know that it is Ibsen's habit to attack respectability and criticize accepted moral values—it is not because of anything that he has told us, or hinted to us, in the play itself. In no other case does he leave our interest at such a loose end as in this, his prentice-work in modern drama. In The League of Youth, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... cheering sections with one another—a rather foolish decree, some thought—finding it hard to imagine a football contest devoid of the familiar and on-spurring "Rah, rahs." But this was an idea that the faculty had devised as a mark of respect and no one could criticize the spirit which had prompted the formulation of the decree. No, if the game were to be played the proper tribute to John Brown must, at the same time, not be lost sight of. And what could be more significantly impressive than a crowd numbering ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... Mrs. Mullet, were inclined to criticize, the many, like her husband, united in declaring Mary to be "all right." And her rearranging and displaying of the Christmas goods helped her and her uncles to dispose of them. In fact, for the three days before Christmas it became ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... humiliating defeat for our enemies, it will be more interesting to our readers to quote from English writers who were participants in the battle, and eye-witnesses of the scenes they describe with graphic pen. We are ever curious to know what others see and say of us, especially if they honestly criticize us with a ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith

... wandered from the tournament to some phrase he had made use of in writing to Nora, or, it might be, some phrase of hers that would suddenly spring into his mind. He sought no longer to discover her character from her letters, nor did he criticize the many contradictions which had perplexed him: it seemed to him that he accepted her now, as the phrase goes, 'as she was,' thinking of her as he might of some supernatural being whom he had offended, and who had revenged herself. Her wickedness became in his eyes an added ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... missed an opportunity of sending their sons for Education—gratis—to the enemy's capital. His conversation—and he was most anxious to pose as very "modern"—showed that Constantinople is not a very nice place for boys to go to school in. He was furious with me for daring to criticize the Serbian murders. He said no one but an enemy of the Serb people would do so, and threatened to denounce me to his uncle. Leaving Berani I plunged into Albanian territory. This land, fondly called by the Serbs "Stara Srbija," Old Serbia, was in point of fact Serb ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... certain evil consequences, and having warned the public to that effect, I quite unexpectedly found my hands full of evidence that the exact evils predicted had, in fact, already shown themselves on a great scale; and, carefully warning the public to criticize this evidence, I produced a small part of it. When Dr. Greenwood talks about my want of "regard to the opinion of the nine thousand odd who still remain among the faithful" (p. 114), he commits an imprudence. ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... our national parks I have wondered at the contentment of the multitude with the less when the greater, and such a greater, was there for the taking. But I ceased to criticize the so-called popular point of view when I realized that its principal cause was ignorance of the wealth within grasp rather than deliberate choice of the more commonplace; instead, I write this book, hoping that ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... the reader will consider that, after all, there are many worse sins than a disposition to think and speak well of one's neighbors. To admire and to love may now and then be tolerated, as a variety, as well as to carp and criticize. America and England have heretofore abounded towards each other in illiberal criticisms. There is not an unfavorable aspect of things in the old world which has not become perfectly familiar to us; and a little of the other side ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... the enthusiasm in the world. Then, some girl in her class may tell her that she doesn't dance well—and her hopes will be shattered and she will become discouraged. Now none of you has any business to give advice or criticize other members of the class. If you can learn stage dancing anywhere, you can learn it in the Ned Wayburn Studios. Persistent practice will do wonders. Remember all I have said about this, and ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... of 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 rest, bearing ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... condition to care about following any particular path in the great labyrinth of London. He walked on, talking thickly and incessantly to the stranger, who never once answered him. It was of no use to applaud his bravery; to criticize his style of fighting, which was anything but scientific; to express astonishment at his skill in knocking his hat on again, all through the struggle, every time it was knocked off; and to declare admiration of his quickness in taking the cook's ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... one was better situated than Gil Vicente to criticize—and suffer the slights of—the brand-new nobility of the Portuguese Court. The nearer they were to the plough the more disdainful were they likely to be to a mere ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... unconsciously into the error of assuming that Jesus shared that view. But it is quite clear from the New Testament writers (the chief authorities for believing that Jesus ever existed) that Jesus at the time of his death believed himself to be the Christ, a divine personage. It is therefore absurd to criticize his conduct before Pilate as if he were Colonel Roosevelt or Admiral von Tirpitz or even Mahomet. Whether you accept his belief in his divinity as fully as Simon Peter did, or reject it as a delusion which led him to submit to torture and sacrifice ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... But this was a night of innovations; Violet was not only included, but the meeting was held in her room. Her way with girls was even more fruitful of result than her way with men. They might laugh at her, criticize her or even call her names significant of disdain, but they never left her long to herself or missed an opportunity to make the most of her ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... charming hospitality. And, by the way, may I suggest that it might have been better for your brother or the gentle-hearted Mr. Hade to run across to the key to get news of my fate, instead of sending a girl on such an errand? It's no business of mine. of course. And I don't presume to criticize two such noble heroes. But surely they ought not have sent you. If their kindly plan had worked out according to schedule. I should not have been a pretty sight for a woman to look at. by this ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... verdicts which were not unjust. And now, as he saw the omnibus, with its two fat brown horses, coming slowly along by the cab rank, and turning into the Piazza that is presided over by Cavour's statue, he prepared almost mechanically to measure and weigh evidence, to criticize ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... who is inclined to criticize the Livingston-Roosevelt-Fulton monopoly which now came into existence should remember that the previous state grants formed a precedent of no slight moment. The whole proceeding was in perfect accord with the spirit of the times, for it was an era of speculation and ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... Rabbit to her omnibus, and, in spite of hints from Mrs. Mills, remained when all the other guests had departed. He took opportunity to criticize the management of the evening, and to deplore the fact that his services had not been utilized. Making an estimate of the total cost, he again referred to his suggestion in regard to a series of similar entertainments ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... Mexico. It is the age-long struggle of a people to come into their own, and while we look upon the incidents in the foreground, let us not forget the tragic reality in the background which towers above this whole sad picture. The gentlemen who criticize me speak as if America were afraid to fight Mexico. Poor Mexico, with its pitiful men, women, and children, fighting to gain a foothold in their own land! They speak of the valour of America. What is true valour? I would be just as much ashamed to be rash as ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... Brahmans of the Deccan were divided into two camps, one of which, headed at first by the late Mr. Justice Ranade, consisted of a small intellectual elite, who held, without forgoing their right to criticize British administrators or to promote political reforms by constitutional methods, that Indians of all creeds, including the Hindus, should begin by reforming their own social institutions, and bring them into greater ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... Bob approached him with some question connected with the night of the tragedy, but at first Fremont refused to talk on the subject, well knowing that the big fellow would only criticize what he said. After a time, however, Fremont decided that it might be to his advantage to draw the fellow out, and the next time he came ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... They are first to criticize the acts of those who are in the first ranks; and raise the question, "where are your trophies?" There is not a true soldier in our army but will bear me out ...
— History of the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry • R. C. Rankin

... who, mad as a hatter at Naumburg, yet contrives to hypnotize the younger generation with his crazy doctrines of force, of the great Blond Barbarian, of the Will to Destroy—infinitely more vicious than the Will to Live—and the inherent immorality of Wagner's music. I came to Bayreuth to criticize; I go away praying, praying for the mental salvation of his new expounders, praying that this poisonous nonsense will not reach us in ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... course, is not a newspaper, but a gazette of governmental notices, etc. The Government has its own printing-office, but if these other, the 'Tribune' and the 'Liberal,' had establishments here, they would be raided and closed, for they would hardly be allowed to criticize the Government as harshly as they do. The 'Tribune' is in French and Tahitian, the 'Liberal' and the 'Journal Officiel' in French. One time it was recommended that the official paper might be more popular if it had some ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... ride only one hobby at a time. For the present we disavow all minor ones. We forbear giving our pet arguments in defence of animal food, and in opposition to tobacco, coffee, and india-rubbers. We will not criticize the old-school physician whom we once knew, who boasted of not having performed a thorough ablution for twenty-five years; nor will we question the physiological orthodoxy of Miss Sedgwick's New England ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... isn't your turn to criticize people's prudence—you who fall out of the saddle when ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... awaiting their fate they were to a startling extent regarded as heroes and bore themselves as martyrs to a noble cause. Six years later, Illinois elected as governor John P. Altgeld, one of whose first steps was to issue a pardon to the three who were serving terms of imprisonment and to criticize sharply the conduct of the trial which had resulted in the conviction of ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... it is a highly ornamented stupa with galleries of sculpture rising one above the other on its sides—has been often described and can be described intelligibly only at considerable length. I will therefore not attempt to detail or criticize its beauties but will merely state some points which are important ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... pulled for the opposite shore. My endeavors to gain this point were balked by Silvia's remarkable conceptions of the art of steering craft. She was so serenely satisfied, however, with the way she performed her duties and the aid she thought she was giving me, that I forbore to criticize. ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... was his wife, his girl, his flower which he had plucked; and there it was, for the universe to see, for the universe to heed as a matter of course. For himself, since he had married her, he had never thought of another woman for an instant, except either to admire or to criticize her; and his criticism was, as Jasmine had said, "infantile." The sum of it was, he was married to the woman of his choice, she was married to the man of her choice; and there it was, there it was, a great, eternal, settled fact. It was not a thing for speculation or doubt ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Remember this man 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 proud to fight, or he may offer you ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay

... our ideal is a practicable 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 ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... 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 going ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... themselves whatever they please. It's no affair of mine. You and your sister spell your father's name in a way to suit yourselves: I never interfered, did I? You have your own ideas and your own tastes. They are quite beyond me—but they're all right for you. I don't criticize them at all. What I say is that it is a great mercy your uncle came along, with his pockets full of money to enable you to make the most of them. If I were religious I should ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic



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



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