Quotes About Merit

You will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or not merit of their own to depend on . . .

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!

Give nobly to indigent merit, and do not refuse your charity even to those who have not merit but their misery.

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.

A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.

It is a mystery to me how a theologian can be praised for having brought himself to disbelieve dogmas. I've always thought that those who have brought themselves to believe in dogmas merit the true recognition owing a heroic deed.

The entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names; as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.

And for yourself, whatever there has been either of sin or duty, remember the one and forget the other, and betake yourself wholly to the mercy of God and the merit of Christ.

The empirical is very important, but merit is inherent and not acquired. A university is massively important because you can see where you stand naturally in the ranks, and try yourself out, but education is just reading and understanding what you read.

I just keep it simple. Watch the ball and play it on merit.

A war, or any wild-goose chase, is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a lucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, whose chief merit is the art of keeping himself in place.

Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

I listen to tons of hard rock and metal, like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, etc., but I also listen to Beethoven and Mozart, to Discharge and the Bad Brains, and to Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. So I think there's merit to both the melodic punk and to the hardcore stuff too.

It is Toussaint's supreme merit that while he saw European civilisation as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its foundations among his people, he never had the illusion that it conferred any moral superiority. He knew French, British, and Spanish imperialists for the insatiable gangsters that they were, that there is no oath too sacred for them to break, no crime, deception, treachery, cruelty, destruction of human life and property which they would not commit against those who could not defend themselves.

FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

To be out of harmony with one's surroundings is of course a misfortune, but it is not always a misfortune to be avoided at all costs. Where the environment is stupid or prejudiced or cruel, it is a sign of merit to be out of harmony with it.

There is a sort of natural instinct of human dignity in the heart of man which steels his very nerves not to bend beneath the heavy blows of a great adversity. The palm-tree grows best beneath a ponderous weight, even so the character of man. There is no merit in it, it is a law of psychology. The petty pangs of small daily cares have often bent the character of men, but great misfortunes seldom. There is less danger in this than in great good luck.

It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.

The sole purpose of life is to gain merit for life in eternity.

It’s important to me that people hear my music on its own merit and not in relation to another project I’ve done. Ultimately, the music has its own energy and message and stands on its own.

The measure of artistic merit is the length to which a writer is willing to go in following his own compulsions.

I am weak, I say with no presumptions. I have no merit, I note it, that is all. There are times that I feel so weak there most be a mistake, and as I don't know what I mean with this, I am not going to say anything else

There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us and others who please us in spite of their faults.

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.

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.

Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of human merit.

Merit challenges envy.

The most distinguished merit of those two officers was their respective prowess, of the one in the combats of Bacchus, of the other in those of Venus.

A purpose derived from a false premise - that a deity has ordained submission to his will - cannot merit respect. The pursuit of Enlightenment-era goals - solving our world's problems through rational discourse, rather than through religion and tradition - provides ample grounds for a purposive existence. It is not for nothing that the Enlightenment, when atheism truly began to take hold, was also known as the Age of Reason.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.

The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.

The art of putting into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than is achieved by true merit.

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.

Where has the Scripture made merit the rule or measure of charity?.

One merit of mathematics few will deny: it says more in fewer words than any other science. The formula, e^iπ = -1 expressed a world of thought, of truth, of poetry, and of the religious spirit "God eternally geometrizes."

If Wells recognized any merit in [Henry] James, it was his undeniable talent for using very long sentences in order to say nothing at all. p. 516

Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.

charity is a calm, severe duty; it must be intellectual, to be advantageous. It is a strange mistake that it should ever be considered a merit; its fulfillment is only what we owe to each other, and is a debt never paid to its full extent.

The gospel is the proclamation of free love; the revelation of the boundless charity of God. Nothing less than this will suit our world; nothing else is so likely to touch the heart, to go down to the lowest depths of depraved humanity, as the assurance that the sinner has been loved -- loved by God, loved with a righteous love, loved with a free love that makes no bargain as to merit, or fitness, or goodness.

Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such; it is an accident, not a property of man.

If I cannot narrate a life of adventurous and daring exploits, fortunately I have no heavy crimes to confess: and, if I do not rise in the estimation of the reader for acts of gallantry and devotion in my country's cause, at least I may claim the merit of zealous and persevering continuance in my vocation. We are all of us variously gifted from Above, and he who is content to walk, instead of to run, on his allotted path through life, although he may not so rapidly attain the goal, has the advantage of not being out of breath upon his arrival.

Wanting to work is so rare a merit, that it should be encouraged.

We believe in individual merit as a means of gaining salvation

I won't touch on risky, because that's subjective. People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don't necessarily merit fear.

We actually are waiting for more people to be killed before we can do something that makes sense. We don't kill enough people in aviation to merit regulatory changes.

Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.

If you are greeted then return the greetings more warmly. If you are favored, then repay the obligation manifold; but he who takes the initiative will always excel in merit.

A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you.