"Critics are the stupid who discuss the wise."

[Jonathan Lighter]

This observation is occasionally quoted, attributed to "Anonymous."

  Well, that's technically correct, but it was Tolstoy who set it down for posterity:

  1930 L. N. Tolstoy _What is Art and Essays on Art_ (trans. A. Maude) 194: A friend of mine, speaking of the relation of critics to artists, half-jokingly defined it thus: 'Critics are the stupid who discuss the wise.'  However partial, inexact, and rude, this definition may be, it is yet partly true, and incomparably more just than the definition which considers critics to be men who can explain works of art.

  Tolstoy published his notorious essay "What is Art?" (in Russian) in 1898.

  JL


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