Quotes About Merit

I have seen quite a few folk whom I know to be both fair minded and, as it happens,[Bob] Dylan fans, take up cudgels for this position. To them, it's not necessarily that Dylan doesn't merit the highest honour. It's that he doesn't merit this specific highest honour [Nobel prize], in the way a champion pole vaulter shouldn't be given a medal for the long jump. It is in this group that the Wahey!s are mainly to be found, firing off jests, or mock solemnly reciting Dylan's sillier lyrics as if these are entirely representative of his oeuvre.

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.

To be an object of hatred and aversion to their contemporaries has been the usual fate of all those whose merit has raised them above the common level. The man who submits to the shafts of envy for the sake of noble objects pursues a judicious course for his own lasting fame. Hatred dies with its object, while merit soon breaks forth in full splendor, and his glory is handed down to posterity in never-dying strains.

We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit.

We are all pirates at heart. There is not one of us who hasn't had a little larceny in his soul. And which one of us wouldn't soar if God had thought there was merit in the idea? So, when we see one of those great widespread pirates soaring across the grain of sea winds we thrill, and we long, and, if we are honest, we curse that we must be men every day. Why not one day a bird! There's an idea, now, one day out of seven a pirate in the sky. What puny power a man can attain by comparison. Compare a 747 with a bird and blush!

No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance. He that imagines an assembly filled with his merit, panting with expectation, and hushed with attention, easily terrifies himself with the dread of disappointing them, and strains his imagination in pursuit of something that may vindicate the veracity of fame, and show that his reputation was not gained by chance.

It seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries—and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing one another.

You really have to wonder why we even bother to get up in the morning. I mean, really: Why work? Simply to buy more stuff? That's just not enough. Look at us all. What's the common assumption that got us all from there to here? What makes us deserve the ice cream and running shoes and wool Italian suits we have? I mean, I see all of us trying so hard to acquire so much stuff, but I can't help but feeling that we didn't merit it.

No knowledge, however thorough and extensive, no brilliance and perspicuity, no dialectic sophistication, will preserve us from the commmonness of thought and will. It is truly not the merit of the school if we do not come out selfish.

Men have singled out women of outstanding merit and put them on a pedestal to avoid recognizing the capabilities of all women.

There is no merit in a special talent unless its exercise is of use to others.

More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.

You can see why there are more people wanting to come from economically-distressed areas, and they can't all come to America. So it gets into the valid, legitimate debate over immigration as to how do we choose. Do we have a diversity lottery and take people from everywhere, do we base it more on merit?

I am astonished at the pleasure one experiences in doing good; and I should be tempted to believe that what we call virtuous people have not so much merit as they lead us to suppose.

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.

The man who is praised by others is regarded as worthy though he may be really void of all merit. But the man who sings his own praises becomes disgraced though he should be Indra, the possessor of all excellencies.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.

Taking advantage of the method, found by me, of the black staining of the elements of the brain, staining obtained by the prolonged immersion of the pieces, previously hardened with potassium or ammonium bichromate, in a 0.50 or 1.0% solution of silver nitrate, I happened to discover some facts concerning the structure of the cerebral gray matter that I believe merit immediate communication.

As a means of dispensing formulated ignorance our boasted public school system is not without merit; it spreads out education sufficiently thin to give everyone enough to make him a more competent fool than he would have been without it.

Australia as a nation, as a set of cities and some regional centres, that project died a death and we didn't get it up, but I still think there's merit in that.

Object to merit and distinction, and you're setting your face against quality, independence, originality, genius against all the richness and variety of life. When you hold back the successful, you penalize those who need help.

The most successful of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to which he was entitled by the superiority either of merit or of power. He was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his equals; and the title of Khan expresses, in the language of the North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal descendants of the renowned Zingis.

But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace withoutgrandeur, and itself not new but derivative; a vase of fair outline, but empty,--which whoso sees, may fill with what wit and character is in him, but which does not, like the charged cloud, overflow with terrible beauty, and emit lightnings on all beholders.

The grand solid merit of jury trial is that the jurors ... are selected at the last moment from the multitude of citizens. They cannot be known beforehand, and they melt back into the multitiude after each trial.

Ties of blood are not always ties of friendship; but friendship founded on merit, on esteem, and on mutual trust, becomes more vital and more tender when strengthened by the ties of blood.

Stephen Miller said, "Over time you would cut net migration in half, which polling shows is supported overwhelmingly by the American people in a very large number." This is why Donald Trump got elected. "It's a major promise to the American people to push for merit-based immigration reform that protects American workers, American taxpayers - protects the American economy - and prioritizes the needs of our citizens, our residents, and our workers. It's pro-America immigration", he said.

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.

Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be criticised.

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.

People talk about 'getting rid of the old image', and I guess there's some merit in that. But the truth is that people loved 'The Wonder Years' - I can't turn my back on it.

The pleasures of this world are rather from God's goodness than our own merit.

Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. Our government does not copy our neighbors', but is an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit

A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.

God's love is an exercise of his goodness toward sinners who merit only condemnation.

Charm strikes the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the good player.

There's this belief with no merit that media with women at the center applies only to women, but media with men at the center applies to everyone.

Merit is never so conspicuous as when coupled with an obscure origin, just as the moon never appears so lustrous as when it emerges from a cloud.

The merit of painting lies in the exactness of reproduction. Painting is a science and all sciences are based on mathematics. No human inquiry can be a science unless it pursues its path through mathematical exposition and demonstration.

In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.

He makes his cook his merit, and the world visits his dinners and not him.

The case of Andrews is really a very bad one, as appears by the record already before me. Yet before receiving this I had orderedhis punishment commuted to imprisonmentand had so telegraphed. I did this, not on any merit in the case, but because I am trying to evade the butchering business lately.

An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an injurious truth, lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving.

Learning is a friend on the journey; a wife in the house; medicine in sickness; and religious merit is the only friend after death.

One of the most staggering truths of the Scriptures is to understand that we do not earn our way to heaven. ...works have a place--but as a demonstration of having received God's forgiveness, not as a badge of merit of having earned it.

We are saved by grace, through faith in Christ alone! And since there is no room for human merit there can be no grounds for human boasting!

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