critic quotes

Explore thought-provoking critiques and analysis on various topics from our insightful critics. Delve into their opinions and perspectives on our vast collection of quotes.

This is the first test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible value to him.

- William Lyon Phelps

The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.

- William Lyon Phelps

Music is essentially the manly art... In the entire history of music, in all times and countries, there had never been a woman able to write first-rate music.

- William Lyon Phelps

If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.

- William Lyon Phelps

At a certain age, people's minds close up and they live off their intellectual fat.

- William Lyon Phelps

Eroticism is mystique; that is, the aura of emotion and imagination around sex. It cannot be 'fixed' by codes of social or moral convenience, whether from the political left or right. For nature's fascism is greater than that of any society. There is a daemonic instability in sexual relations that we may have to accept.

- Camille Paglia

Rule of art: Can't kills creativity!

- Camille Paglia

Pursuit and seduction are the essence of sexuality. It's part of the sizzle.

- Camille Paglia

Pornography is art, sometimes harmonious, sometimes dissonant. Its glut and glitter are a Babylonian excess.

- Camille Paglia

Old school feminism, coveting social power, is blind to woman's cosmic sexual power.

- Camille Paglia

My problem is that I do not get along with lesbians at all. They don't like me, and I don't like them.

- Camille Paglia

My argument has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

- Camille Paglia

My advice, as in everything, is to read widely and think for yourself We need more dissent and less dogma.

- Camille Paglia

Men have sacrificed and crippled themselves physically and emotionally to feed, house, and protect women and children. None of their pain or achievement is registered in feminist rhetoric, which portrays men as oppressive and callous exploiters.

- Camille Paglia

Men are run ragged by female sexuality all their lives. From the beginning of his life to the end, no man ever fully commands any woman. It's an illusion. Men are pussy-whipped. And they know it. That's what the strip clubs are about; not woman as victim, not woman as slave, but woman as goddess.

- Camille Paglia

Men are looking for maternal solace in women, and that's the nature of heterosexuality. Now you tell me, who really has all the power?

- Camille Paglia

Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all.

- Camille Paglia

In the real world, very smart people fail and mediocre people rise. Part of what makes people fail or succeed are skills that have nothing to do with IQ.

- Camille Paglia

If you live in rock and roll, as I do, you see the reality of sex, of male lust and women being aroused by male lust. It attracts women. It doesn't repel them.

- Camille Paglia

I remember turning 'The Sopranos' on once and within two minutes nearly throwing a brick through the screen.

- Camille Paglia