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About this quote

What does it mean?
Criticism is defined as a neutral effort to learn and spread the best known and thought.
In plain terms
Criticism means sharing the best ideas fairly.
What can you take from it?
Be neutral and share the best knowledge available.

Where it applies

  • journalism
  • academic review
  • blogging

Putting it to work

  • seek truth
  • share fairly
  • avoid bias

Questions to consider

  • Can criticism ever be truly disinterested?
  • What is the best to share?

Another view

True disinterest is hard to achieve in practice.

More from Matthew Arnold

  1. The notion of the free play of the mind upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object of desire, being an essential provider of elements withou…

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  2. Whispering from her [Oxford's] towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age...Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible …

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  3. Burke is so great because, almost alone in England, he brings thought to bear upon politics, he saturates politics with thought.

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