Quotes About Merit

The arrogance that accompanies merit offends us even more than the arrogance of people who are lacking in merit: since merit itself offends us.

The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself.

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

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.

When people are judged by merit, not connections, then the best and brightest can lead the country, people will work hard, and the entire economy will grow - everyone will benefit and more resources will be available for all, not just select groups.

Women are sometimes drawn in to believe against probability by the unwillingness they have to doubt their own merit.

We all want merit to mean something, and we all may be tempted to reduce that meaning to something measurable and concrete like an SAT score. The reality, though, is that who deserves entry into an institution depends on what the institution exists to do.

True merit does not depend on the times or on fashion. Those who have no other advantage than courtly manners lose it when they are away from court. But good sense, knowledge, and wisdom make their possessors knowledgeable and beloved in all ages and in all times.

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.

Peace is never so complete that we may not have something to suffer. . . . Since it is impossible to please all of [those you serve], they offer you the occasion for practices which increase your merit in the measure that you make them meritorious by your patience.

The Sage expects no recognition for what he does; he achieves merit but does not take it to himself; he does not wish to display his worth.

Standing on "tip toe", one stands not firmly. Straining in stride, one cannot walk far. Flaunting of deeds, one is unfavorably noticed. Being self-righteous, one is not respected. Boasting of self, one's merit is unrecognized. Glorifying of self, one loses the opportunity for greatness. From the viewpoint of Tao These represent imperfect Te, Valued as are filth or disease.

If living on fruits and water is of superior merit, monkeys and fish will go to heaven before men.

Merit has rarely risen of itself, but a pebble or a twig is often quite sufficient for it to spring from to the highest ascent. There is usually some baseness before there is any elevation.

There is no merit where there is no trial; and till experience stamps the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, and faith for falsehood.

You rave about the Holy Place (Masjid al-Haram) and say you've visited God's garden but where is your bunch of flowers? There is some merit in the suffering you have endured but what a pity you have not discovered the Makkah thats inside

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.

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

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

The world sees only the reflection of merit; therefore when you come to know a really great man intimately, you may as often find him above as below his reputation.

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

On the Continent stray cats are judged individually on their merit-some are loved, some are only respected; in England they are universally worshipped as in ancient Egypt.

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.

Honourable mention encourages science, and merit is fostered by praise.

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.

Our moral efforts are too feeble and falsely motivated to ever merit salvation.

Charm strikes the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all prospect of a future state is only fancy and delusion? Is there any merit in being the messenger of ill news. If it is a dream, let me enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.

One single object . . . [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.

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.

Fashion is not a real element of beauty in external objects; and to persons who possess a good endowment of Form, Constructiveness and Ideality, intrinsic elegance is much more pleasing and permanently agreeable, than forms of less merit, recommended merely by being new. Hence there is a beauty which never palls, and there are objects over which fashion exercises no control.

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

Through the dark days of legalized segregation and on into the civil rights era, jazz shone as a beacon for achieving interracial respect and understanding. It seemed as if the dream of a color-blind society was within reach in the jazz world, where musicians were judged on merit and not skin color.

Nothing in medicine is so insignificant as to merit attention.

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

Nuclear Weapons merit unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation

For Quality: Stamp out fires, automate, computerize, M.B.O., install merit pay, rank people, best efforts, zero defects. WRONG!!!! Missing ingredient: profound knowledge.

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.

Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing.

Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty - their power and privilege - to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians.

An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he should purchase the favour of Heaven if he maintained the idle at the expense of the industrious, and distributed among the saints the wealth of the republic.

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.

The Chinese, whom it might be well to disparage less and imitate more, seem almost the only people among whom learning and merit have the ascendency, and wealth is not the standard of estimation.

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.

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

When we are conscious of the least comparative merit in ourselves, we should take as much care to conceal the value we set upon it, as if it were a real defect; to be elated or vain upon it is showing your money before people in want.

The Age of Reason has turned out to be the Age of Structure; a time when, in the absence of purpose, the drive for power as a value in itself has become the principal indicator of social approval. And the winning of power has become the measure of social merit.

The higher state to which [America] seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but of divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.