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.

When you bring an idea that has no merit to me, and you ask me to comment on it, I'm going to tell you it has no merit.

[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.

The merit of a democratic regime rests on one's continual willingness to exchange views, and to compete on the basis of individual merit and capacities.

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

We're not making up merit scores for ourselves. We're making up merit scores so that we can be reborn in a situation where we can really live to benefit ourselves and others.

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.

Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.

Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.

If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you.

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.

It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat.

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.

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.

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

More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.

A man's women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow. In this fact, perhaps, lies one of the best proofs of feminine intelligence, or, as the common phrase makes it, feminine intuition.

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.

The West has given us the liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit, and human satisfaction.

In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.

While the soul is in mortal sin, nothing can profit it; none of its good works merit an eternal reward, since they do not proceed from God as their first principle, and by Him alone is our virtue real virtue.

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

Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.

If you try to add to God's salvation you subtract. If you try to add to God's salvation you subtract. If you try to merit God's salvation you haven't believed at all, even if you try to do a little bit.

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.

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.

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun.

Perpetual modernism is the measure of merit in every work of art.

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

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.

There is a proud modesty in merit.

We can speculate on what's likely, but what's needed is an investigation. And speculation is no substitute for facts. As a former prosecutor, I prosecuted antitrust cases civilly. And I can say that antitrust investigations merit searching, penetrating scrutiny and investigation. That's what we need here.

Cagey trial lawyers have figured out there's a pretty good likelihood their case - no matter what its merit - will literally get its day in court because of favorable judges.

Our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and demerit, which none of us ever saw.

Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious.

For honest merit to succeed amid the tricks and intrigues which are now so lamentably common, I know is difficult; but the honor of success is increased by the obstacles which are to be surmounted. Let me triumph as a man or not at all.

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.

I would suppose I learned how to write when I was very young indeed. When I read a child's book about the Trojan War and decided that the Greeks were really a bunch of frauds with their tricky horses and the terrible things they did, stealing one another's wives, and so on, so at that very early age, I re-wrote the ending of the Iliad so that the Trojans won. And boy, Achilles and Ajax got what they wanted, believe me. And thereafter, at frequent intervals, I would write something. It was really quite extraordinary. Never of very high merit, but the daringness of it was.

He who first praises a book becomingly is next in merit to the author.

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.

If they're not sincere, then naturally I'll turn them down. But if what they want is to gain power and use it for a higher good, I'll help them. Then they merit some special consideration.

But there's this one difference: one is gold put to the use of paving-stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver. Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had first-rate qualities, and they are lost, rendered worst than unavailing.

Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.

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.

Things like racism are institutionalized. You might not know any bigots. You feel like "well I don't hate black people so I'm not a racist," but you benefit from racism. Just by the merit, the color of your skin. The opportunities that you have, you're privileged in ways that you might not even realize because you haven't been deprived of certain things. We need to talk about these things in order for them to change.

The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.

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.

God often delays the conclusion of a holy endeavor so that those involved in it might merit its grace by the length of the work, their patience, and their prayers. This is why I beg you not to grow weary in yours. Although He may delay, He will reveal that it is pleasing to Him, if it is done, nevertheless, in a spirit of resignation regarding the outcome.