Quotes About Merit

The appearances of goodness and merit often meet with a greater reward from the world than goodness and merit themselves.

[We need] to choose immigrants based on merit. Merit, skill, and proficiency. Doesn't that sound nice? And to establish new immigration controls to boost wages and to ensure that open jobs are offered to American workers first.

There is a sort of homely truth and naturalness in some books which is very rare to find, and yet looks cheap enough. There may benothing lofty in the sentiment, or fine in the expression, but it is careless country talk. Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art. Some have this merit only.

There is merit without rank, but there is no rank without some merit.

For the most part I pick movies based on the merit of the script, and the merit of the script only.

We are ever aware that politics is an ugly struggle that determines 'who gets what, when, and how.' It is the favorite occupation of people who serve special interests, who have axes to grind, and public careers to advance. It is a game in which benefits are bestowed according to political skill and connection, rather than merit.

Thus you may understand that love alone is the true seed of every merit in you, and of all acts for which you must atone.

Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them.

The merit in action lies in finishing it to the end.

Only where there is pecuniary equality can the distinction of merit stand out.

This is the merit and distinction of art: to be more real than reality, to be not nature but nature's essence.

To yield readily--easily--to the persuasion of a friend is no merit.... To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either.

In the founders of great families, titles or attributes of honor are generally correspondent with the virtues of the person to whom they are applied; but in their descendants they are too often the marks rather of grandeur than of merit. The stamp and denomination still continue, but the intrinsic value is frequently lost.

Use every man according to his desert and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity, the less they deserve ... the more merit in your bounty.

the most censorious are generally the least judicious; who, having nothing to recommend themselves, will be finding fault with others. No man envies the merit of another, that has any of his own.

I don't think women are interesting enough to merit a book. They're more of a pamphlet sex.

There is no merit in putting off a war for a year if, when it comes, it is far worse or much harder to win.

The heart is that which lies at the centre of things, and is also formless. It is simple awareness devoid of movement to and fro, of past and future, within and without, merit and harm. Wherever the centre of a thing lies, there lies its heart, for the word 'heart' means centrality.

Many have no desire to be in it, because their work does not interest them, providing them with neither challenge nor satisfaction, and has no other merit in their eyes than that it leads to a pay-packet at the end of the week.

I look at a pilot and go, "I see the landscape. I see the characters. I see the direction and the potential of the story." And I also go, "That didn't work. I could change that. Maybe that works. I don't know. We'll see." For me, I look at it, as an actor, as what can I improve upon? So, to have it out there and judged solely on its own merit is really a unique experience for me.

We blame equally him who is too proud to put a proper value on his own merit and him who prizes too highly his spurious worth.

If you are not having good experiences in meditation, then do more seva you will gain merit and your meditation will be deeper. When you bring some relief or freedom to someone through seva, good vibrations and blessings come to you

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

The world is not a meritocracy, as much as we may like to pretend that it is. And we have a long way to go before we really reward people based on their own merit.

Great merit or great failings will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked, in the general run of the world. Examine yourself, why you like such and such people and dislike such and such others; and you will find that those different sentiments proceed from very slight causes.

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.

No one can bar me from joyfully proceeding on what the great masters have left us; after all, to rediscover everything again, should be understood to be unfounded. But one should however proceed on merit, and not simply repeat wat was. All genius, sincere, deserves his place, even though maybe later in life.

The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.

Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity.

I do not like the late resurrection of the Jesuits. . . . If ever any congregation of men could merit eternal perdition on earth, and in hell, according to these historians, though, like Pascal, true Catholics, it is this company of Loyolas.

The sacrifices made by veterans and their willingness to fight in defense of our nation merit our deep respect and praise - and to the best in benefits and medical care.

The best evidence of merit is a cordial recognition of it whenever and wherever it may be found.

She alone had been blind to his merit. Why? Because he loved her and she did not love him. What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?

Nuclear Weapons merit unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation

Nature makes merit, and fortune puts it to work.

For some people, every door opens, and they meet just who they need to meet when they need to meet them, all the conditions come together. For other people, there is one problem after the other, even though they are so sincere. And from a Tibetan point of view, this is because of a lack of merit.

In truth, ideas and principles are independent of men; the application of them and their illustration is man's duty and merit. The time will come when the author of a view shall be set aside, and the view only taken cognizance of. This will be the millennium of Science.

[Michael] Chabon is arguing in favor of what is at the same time an old-fashioned and very forward-thinking opening up - of taking off the class associations with those labels, because we grew up, or I certainly grew up, feeling that, "Oh, there's literary fiction, and beneath that, there's these other things." He's actually saying that they're all of equal merit, and in many cases, that work in the genres, or work that draws from the genres is more entertaining for readers, since it is our job to entertain people.

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

Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge.

Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favor. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining those rewards which the accomplishment may deserve. She is not easily persuaded to believe that the force of merit can be resisted by obstinacy and avarice, or its luster darkened by envy and malignity.

Real merit of any kind cannot long be concealed; it will be discovered, and nothing can depreciate it but a man exhibiting it himself. It may not always be rewarded as it ought; but it will always be known.

A critical assumption is sometimes made that [Grisham, Clancey, Crichton & myself] have access to some mystical vulgate that other (and often better) writers cannot find or will not deign to use. I doubt if this is true. Nor do I believe the contention of some popular novelists... that thier success is based on literary merit -- that the public understands true greatness in ways the tight-a**ed, consumed-by-jealousy literary establishment cannot. This idea is ridiculous, a product of vanity and insecurity.

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?

The security provided by a long-held belief system, even when poorly founded, is a strong impediment to progress. General acceptance of a practice becomes the proof of its validity, though it lacks all other merit.

There is this notion that the lives of the comfortable-off middle class don't merit being treated seriously and with compassion.

For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need.

The problem is if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you’ll also, by implication … believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.