Quotes About Merit

Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.

When enlightened people are so poor that they cannot help others, if they speak a word to awaken the confused or to resolve a problem, there is also boundless merit in that.

Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love

Government employees move up the ladder through educational credentials rather than merit. People are given jobs and promotions based on seniority, race and gender rather than ability or talent. Such a system often overlooks the deserving and rewards the incompetent. There is no payoff for achievement.

High-class kitsch may well be "perfect" in its form and and composition: the academic painters were often masters of their craft. Thus, the accusation that a work of kitsch is based not on lack of for or aesthetic merit but on the presence of a particularly provocative emotional content. (The best art, by contrast, eschews emotional content altogether.)

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

I think there's a lot of merit in an international economy and global markets, but they're not sufficient because markets don't look after social needs.

A man convinced of his own merit will accept misfortune as an honor, for thus can he persuade others, as well as himself, that he is a worthy target for the arrows of fate.

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.

I don't say 'Tis impossible for an impudent man not to rise in the world, but a moderate merit with a large share of impudence is more probable to be advanced than the greatest qualifications without it.

The magnitude of this evil among us is so deeply felt, and so universally acknowledged, that no merit could be greater than that of devising a satisfactory remedy for it.

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 want the best results in an organization, you must rely solely on merit.

And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.

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.

The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.

... we must drive them [Jews] out like mad dogs, so that we do not become partakers of their abominable blasphemy and all the their other vices and thus merit God's wrath and be damned with them.

By meditating on affectionate love and wishing love for just one moment we accumulate greater merit than we would by giving food three times every day to all those who are hungry in the world.

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

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.

Success and social promotion are not some right that anybody can claim after queuing at some [government office]. It is better: it is a right, a right that one can merit because of one's sweat.

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

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable?

Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth; that is the least consideration; but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district; all studied and appreciated as they merit; are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty.

The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.

It need hardly be said that shortness is a merit in words.

Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity.

It is convention and arbitrary rewards which make all the merit and demerit of what we call vice and virtue.

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.

I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting - a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number - entirely without merit...I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached.

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.

A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.

He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

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.

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.

Be patient, because the weaknesses of the body are given to us in this world by God for the salvation of the soul. So they are of great merit when they are borne patiently.

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.

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.

Love is alone sufficient by itself, it pleases by itself and for it's own sake. It is itself a merit, and itself it's own recompense. It seeks neither cause, nor consequences beyond itself. It is its own fruit, its own object and usefulness. I love because I love you, I love that I may love.

Sentimentalists ... adopt whatever merit is in good repute, and almost make it hateful with their praise. The warmer their expressions, the colder we feel.... Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize the Pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debauchee of sentiment?

He is always the severest censor of the merit of others who has the least worth of his own.

But if our sex would but well consider and rationally ponder, they will perceive and find that it is neither words nor place that can advance them, but worth and merit.

What [he] is apparently objecting to is that not everyone takes his beliefs seriously. Indeed, some don't seem to respect his beliefs at all, and actually poke fun at them. Well, I have news for [him]: that's the nature of a free society. Opinions don't necessarily merit respect; they must earn respect in the marketplace of ideas.

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.