The common-place critic . . . believes that truth lies in the middle, between the extremes of right and wrong. - William Hazlitt

Persons without education certainly do not want [lack] either acuteness or strength of mind in what concerns themselves, or in things immediately within their observation; but they have no power of abstraction — they see their objects always near, never in the horizon.

We affect to laugh at the folly of those who put faith in nostrums, but are willing to see ourselves whether there is any truth in them.

A common-place critic has something to say upon every occasion, and he always tells you either what is not true, or what you knew before, or what is not worth knowing. He is a person who thinks by proxy, and talks by rote. He differs with you, not because he thinks you are in the wrong, but because he thinks somebody else will think so. Nay, it would be well if he stopped here; but he will undertake to misrepresent you by anticipation, lest others should misunderstand you, and will set you right, not only in opinions which you have, but in those which you may be supposed to have.