Quotes About Merit

The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.

All men agree that a just distribution must be according to merit in some sense; they do not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with freemen, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.

You will see in this my notion of good works, that I am far from expecting to merit heaven by them. By heaven we understand a state of happiness, infinite in degree, and eternal in duration. I can do nothing to deserve such rewards... Even the mixed imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world, are rather from God's goodness than our merit, how much more such happiness of heaven!

By Christ's purchasing redemption, two things are intended: his satisfaction and his merit; the one pays our debt, and so satisfies; the other procures our title, and so merits. The satisfaction of Christ is to free us from misery; the merit of Christ is to purchase happiness for us.

We have gone for decades now with no immigration plan. Now we have one. It's a common sense immigration plan that has proven to work. It's the same one in Canada, same thing in New Zealand and Australia. One aspect of the plan is merit-based entry into the country. You get in based on merit. It's a point system. You get in on your ability to speak English, and you get in on your ability to hold a job and work a job and produce an income.

No one should judge that he has greater perfection because he performs great penances and gives himself in excess to the staying of the body than he who does less, inasmuch as neither virtue nor merit consists therein; for otherwise he would be an evil case, who for some legitimate reason was unable to do actual penance. Merit consists in the virtue of love alone, flavored with the light of true discretion without which the soul is worth nothing.

Personally, I do not believe that it is the duty of any man or woman to write a novel. In nine cases out of ten, there would be greater merit in leaving it unwritten.

Peace is never so complete that we may not have something to suffer. . . . Since it is impossible to please all of [those you serve], they offer you the occasion for practices which increase your merit in the measure that you make them meritorious by your patience.

The contempt of riches in the philosophers was a concealed desire of revenging on fortune the injustice done to their merit, by despising the good she denied them.

If living on fruits and water is of superior merit, monkeys and fish will go to heaven before men.

Each of us is responsible for creating an environment of warmth and consideration for those we love. I have always tried to define a good day not in terms of one in which all things were made right and comfortable for me but rather, as a day in which I have been able to make another's day more loving and special for them. We must treat each other with dignity. Not because we merit it but because we grow best in thoughtfulness.

Grace is the very opposite of merit... Grace is not only undeserved favor, but it is favor, shown to the one who has deserved the very opposite.

If heaven were by merit, it would never be heaven to me, for if I were in it I should say, "I am sure I am here by mistake; I am sure this is not my place; I have no claim to it." But if it be of grace and not of works, then we may walk into heaven with boldness.

You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don't be concerned with who is watching you. Create your own merit.

There is no merit to discipline under ideal circumstances. I must have it in the face of death or it is worthless.

We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make of them.

Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.

It wasn't glamorous in my day. In the regions, reporters were seen as such low life that they didn't merit their name in the Radio Times. Now people are interested in being famous. I never gave it a thought.

Thoughts mold your features. Thoughts lift your soul heavenward or drag you toward hell. … As nothing reveals character like the company we like and keep, so nothing foretells futurity like the thoughts over which we brood. … To have the approval of your conscience when you are alone with your thoughts is like being in the company of true and loving friends. To merit your own self-respect gives strength to character. Conscience is the link that binds your soul to the spirit of God.

Mr. Lincoln's elevation shows that in America every station in life may be honorable; that there is no barrier against the humblest; but that merit, wherever it exists, has the opportunity to be known.

There is no more merit in being able to attach a correct description to a picture than in being able to find out what is wrong with a stalled motorcar. In each case it is special knowledge.

To those critics who see capitalism as a system of inegalitarian, oppressive structures, its defenders have vaunted its ability to recognize and encourage what they call individual merit and asserted not only the desirability but also the inevitability of differential reward, of earned privilege, so to speak.

The story of the Jews in the Bible is replete with incidents of their ingratitude to God for His gifts to them: incidents that just as repeatedly merit and receive punishment.

Human cultures are all experiments in trying to find a form that will fit the matter of our immediacy; but it is absolutely not the case that all such experiments are of equal merit or value. Some cultures - and modernity is patently one - have managed to transmute consciousness into the "disease" that Nietzsche called it, the self-affliction of a self-centeredness that has purged itself of all vestiges of wisdom and value.

They merit more praise who know how to suffer misery than those who temper themselves in contentment.

Honourable mention encourages science, and merit is fostered by praise.

Charm strikes the sight, but merit wins the soul.

I was always interested in science, truth, goodness and fairness. I have always been strongly individualistic and merit-oriented. This is probably because I was adopted and thus have always tended to cavalierly dismiss the importance of "blood ties" and any inherited or "unearned" group characteristics.

Fauvism was our ordeal by fire... colours became charges of dynamite. They were expected to charge light... The great merit of this method was to free the picture from all imitative and conventional contact.

The lamentable expression: 'But it was only a dream", the increasing use of which - among others in the domain of the cinema - has contributed not a little to encourage such hypocrisy, has for a long while ceased to merit discussion.

Regweld is really a fine wizard," he continued, patting the shoulder again. "And his ideas for crossbreeding a horse and a frog are not without merit; never mind the explosion! Alchemy shops can be replaced!

Merit challenges envy.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

For Quality: Stamp out fires, automate, computerize, M.B.O., install merit pay, rank people, best efforts, zero defects. WRONG!!!! Missing ingredient: profound knowledge.

That the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd. It implies that we are engaging in a courtship. When characters are unlikable, they don’t meet our mutable, varying standards. Certainly we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldn’t be dictated by whether we want to be friends or lovers with those about whom we read.

The entertainment business is and always has been about money, and it's about, "Does that person merit that salary?" The fact is that the business, in my view, has been somewhat bankrupt for years - only the new media made it viable.

A Christian anarchist has no business belonging to such a reactionary organization [the Catholic Church]. I do not believe in original sin, indulgences, the infallibility of the pope, or obedience to any church official if it is against my conscience. I am not interested in earning "merit" or in being saved by priestly incantation.

One may reject such proposals as something that will hurt merit but the ground reality is students from such sections do not have the same access to quality education that rich students enjoy.

The grace of God is love freely shown toward guilty sinners, contrary to their merit and indeed in defiance of their demerit.

The thing to do in this lifetime is to create more merit.

A task, any task, undertaken in an adventurous spirit acquires the merit of romance.

It is not a merit to tolerate, but rather a crime to be intolerant.

The higher state to which [America] seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but of divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.

Time is a most precious asset. Would you consider investing more of your time in the things of eternity in order to merit the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost and to benefit more fully from His influence?

...crystal and hearts would lose all their merit in the world if it were not for their fragility.

Each of us has been sent to earth by our Heavenly Father to merit eternal life

The merit of all things lies in their difficulty.

There can be no merit in believing something which you can neither explain nor understand.