Merit Quotes - Page 23

• Thoughts mold your features. Thoughts lift your soul heavenward or drag you toward hell. … As nothing reveals character like the company we like and keep, so nothing foretells futurity like the thoughts over which we brood. … To have the approval of your conscience when you are alone with your thoughts is like being in the company of true and loving friends. To merit your own self-respect gives strength to character. Conscience is the link that binds your soul to the spirit of God.

  David O. McKay

  Character, Self, Giving

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• My art, what do you want to say about it? Do you think you can explain the merits of a picture to those who do not see them? . . . I can find the best and clearest words to explain my meaning, and I have spoken to the most intelligent people about art, and they have not understood; but among people who understand, words are not necessary, you say humph, he, ha and everything has been said.

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Intelligent, Thinking

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• My study is NOT as a climatologist, but from a completely different perspective in
  which I am an expert … For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion - 'if someone is aggressively selling a technical product who's merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying'. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.

  Burt Rutan

  Lying, Airplane, Data

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• Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.

  Alexander Pope

  Bird, Woe, Beast

  Alexander Pope (1819). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: In Three Volumes Complete : with His Last Corrections, Additions, and Improvements, Together with All His Notes, as They Were Delivered to the Editor a Little Before His Death : Together with the Commentary and Notes of Mr. Warburton”, p.252

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• 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!

  Roger Caras

  Heart, Men, Wind

  Roger A. Caras (1971). “Birds in flight”, Westover Pub. Co

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• 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.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Lying, Math, Path

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

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Book, Lovers, Should

  Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.426

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• If the government is to try and ban private consumption of alcohol and tobacco, it must surely ban such activities as hang-gliding, skiing, rock-climbing and so on. Where should it stop? Rugby? American Football? Ice Hockey?
  Insofar as the government has information not generally available about the merits or demerits of the items we ingest or the activities we engage in, let it give us the information. But let it leave us free to choose what chances we want to take with our own lives.

  Milton Friedman

  Football, Hockey, Rocks

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• If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits

  Ruth Benedict

  War, Examination, Bears

  Ruth Benedict (1973). “Patterns of Culture”, p.57, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Football is a metaphor for the kind of country we want to create. It's based on merit.

  Jack Kemp

  Football, Country, Want

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• The great merit of gold is precisely that it is scarce; that its quantity is limited by nature; that it is costly to discover, to mine, and to process; and that it cannot be created by political fiat or caprice.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Political, Gold, Process

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• Pornography is any act that has no artistic merit and causes sexual thoughts...Sounds like almost every commercial on TV to me.

  Bill Hicks

  Sound, Causes, Tvs

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• An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.

  Ernest Rutherford

  Discovery, Barmaids, Scientific Discovery

  "Einstein: The Man and His Achievement". Book by Gerald James Whitrow, p. 42, 1973.

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• I believe that President Clinton considered the legal merits of the arguments for the pardon as he understood them, and he rendered his judgment, wise or unwise, on the merits.

  John Podesta

  Wise, Believe, President

  "Democratic fund-raiser takes Fifth Amendment in pardons probe" by March 1, 2001, www.cnn.com. March 1, 2001.

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• Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. ... The sensibilities of no two men are the same. Some would refuse to sell property without carefully explaining all about its merits and defects, and putting themselves in the purchasers' place and inquiring if he himself would buy under the circumstances. But such men never would be prosperous merchants.

  Clarence Darrow

  Men, Law, Two

  Clarence Darrow (2015). “The Story of My Life”, p.84, Lulu.com

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• All appointments hurt. Five friends are made cold or hostile for every appointment; no new friends are made. All patronage is perilous to men of real ability or merit. It aids only those who lack other claims to public support.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Hurt, Real, Men

  Letter to William McKinley. "Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes: Nineteenth President of the United States". Book edited by Charles Richard Williams, The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, December 27, 1892.

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• Nevertheless, the central affirmation of the Reformation stands: through no merit of ours, but by his mercy, WE HAVE BEEN RESTORED to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of his beloved Son. This is the Good News, the gospel of Grace

  Brennan Manning

  Son, Grace, News

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.16, Multnomah

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• I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

  Molly Ivins

  Gun, Order, Knives

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• The only merit I have is to have painted directly from nature with the aim of conveying my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects.

  Claude Monet

  Fugitive, Impression, Aim

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• The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific obligation), he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and converts himself into the architect of his own destiny.

  Che Guevara

  Destiny, Men, Tools

  "Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban Revolution". www.marxists.org. October 08, 1960.

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• A solid process lays the foundation for a healthy culture, one where ideas are evaluated by merit and not by job title.

  Eric Ries

  Jobs, Ideas, Healthy

  Eric Ries (2011). “The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses”, p.140, Crown Business

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• The makers of dictionaries are dependent upon specialists for their definitions. A specialist's definition may be true or it may be erroneous. But its truth cannot be increased or its error diminished by its acceptance by the lexicographer. Each definition must stand on its own merits.

  Benjamin Tucker

  Acceptance, Errors, Lexicographer

  Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (1972). “Instead of a Book”

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• Lies don't matter, ... There's no merit to it. It's kind of hard to entertain foolishness when it has no merit.

  Jalen Rose

  Lying, Matter, Kind

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• 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.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Forgiveness, Heaven, Way

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• My company believes in hiring people based on merit.

  Azim Premji

  Believe, People, Hiring

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