Merit Quotes - Page 27

People who live in states have as a rule never experienced the state of nature and vice-versa, and have no practical possibility of moving from the one to the other ... On what grounds, then, do people form hypotheses about the relative merits of state and state of nature? ... My contention here is that preferences for political arrangements of society are to a large extent produced by these very arrangements, so that political institutions are either addictive like some drugs, or allergy-inducing like some others, or both, for they may be one thing for some people and the other for others.

Anthony de Jasay

Moving, Government, People

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What are the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism is a sin.

Thomas Huxley

Believe, Government, People

Thomas Henry Huxley (1872). “Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews”, p.17

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With children no longer the universally accepted reason for marriage, marriages are going to have to exist on their own merits.

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Marriage, Children, Reason

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...the great merit of the place is that one can arrange one's life here exactly as one pleases...there are facilities for every kind of habit and taste, and everything is accepted and understood.

Henry James

Paris, Taste, Kind

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Not only the adoration of images is idolatry, but also trust in one's own righteousness, works and merits, and putting confidence in riches and power. As the latter is the commonest, so it also is the most noxious.

Martin Luther

Riches, Latter, Righteousness

Martin Luther (1959). “What Luther says: an anthology”

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The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits. But scripture here helps us out with an excellent argument when it teaches us that we must not think of man's real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love.

John Calvin

Love, Real, Men

"Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life". Book by John Calvin, 1550.

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Misfortune is the test of a person's merit.

Seneca the Younger

Adversity, Tests, Persons

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I've enjoyed every age I've been, and each has had its own individual merit. Every laugh line, every scar, is a badge I wear to show I've been present, the inner rings of my personal tree trunk that I display proudly for all to see. Nowadays, I don't want a "perfect" face and body; I want to wear the life I've lived.

Pat Benatar

Life, Laughter, Perfect

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No further seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode (There they alike in trembling hope repose), The bosom of his Father and his God.

Thomas Gray

Hope, Father, Abode

1751 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.125-8,'The Epitaph'.

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Another advantage of a mathematical statement is that it is so definite that it might be definitely wrong; and if it is found to be wrong, there is a plenteous choice of amendments ready in the mathematicians' stock of formulae. Some verbal statements have not this merit; they are so vague that they could hardly be wrong, and are correspondingly useless.

Lewis Fry Richardson

Math, Choices, Useless

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. . . Our Lord humbles in order to raise up, and allows the suffering of interior and exterior afflictions in order to bring about peace. He often desires some things more than we do, but wants us to merit the grace of accomplishing them by several practices of virtue and to beg for this with many prayers.

Vincent de Paul

Prayer, Order, Practice

Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre Coste (1990). “Correspondence, Conferences, Documents: Correspondence; January 1640-July 1646)”

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I know well, Monsieur, how much you have to endure in your present duty, and I ask Our Lord to strengthen you in your difficulties. It is in such circumstances that we acquire virtue; where there is no suffering, there is little merit. My wish is that God may grant us great indifference with regard to duties. O Monsieur, how sure we would then be of doing His Holy Will, which is our sole aspiration, and how much peace and contentment we would enjoy, or so it seems to me!

Vincent de Paul

Suffering, Contentment, Wish

Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre Coste (1992). “Correspondence, conferences, documents”, New City Pr

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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.

Vincent de Paul

Faith, Prayer, Grace

Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre Coste (1992). “Correspondence, conferences, documents”, New City Pr

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It is no wonder you are tempted; on the contrary, it would be something new if you were not, because man's life is nothing but temptation, and no one is exempt from it, especially those who have given themselves to God; his own Son even passed through this trial. But if it is necessary for everyone, it is also a source of merit for those to whom God grants the grace of turning all things to good, as you do.

Vincent de Paul

Faith, Son, Men

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[R]est assured that, when you remain thus in the state in which obedience has placed you, the merit of this same obedience extends over everything you do, giving each action inestimable value, even when things do not turn out as you wish.

Vincent de Paul

Wisdom, Giving, Wish

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A doctor who keeps a person from becoming ill deserves more merit than one who cures him.

Vincent de Paul

Wisdom, Deserve More, Doctors

Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre Coste (1985). “Correspondence, Conferences, Documents: Apr. 1650-July 1653”

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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.

Vincent de Paul

Wisdom, Practice, Suffering

Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre Coste (1985). “Correspondence, Conferences, Documents: Apr. 1650-July 1653”

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As the week wore on, Ivan contemplated the merits of inertia as a problem-solving technique with growing favor

Lois McMaster Bujold

Technique, Growing, Favors

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I have rarely read anything which has interested me more, though I have not read as yet more than a quarter of the book proper. From quotations which I had seen, I had a high notion of Aristotle's merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.

Charles Darwin

Book, Men, Two

Charles Darwin (2016). “Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: the Evolution”, p.727, VM eBooks

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For what is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of which, in a world swelling with vile envy, a man seeks to beg pardon for his excellences and merits from those who have none? For
whoever attributes no merit to himself because he really has none is not modest, but merely honest.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Mean, Humility, Men

Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “The World as Will and Representation”, p.234, Courier Corporation

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My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel--not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.

Clara Barton

Home, Writing, Men

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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.

Randy Sandke

Dream, Dark, Rights

Randy Sandke (2010). “Where the dark and the light folks meet: race and the mythology, politics, and business of jazz”, Scarecrow Pr

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Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature.

Samuel Johnson

Men, Temptation, Chiefs

Samuel Johnson (1966). “Johnsonian miscellanies”, Constable

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Relying on the atonement which Christ has made, and desiring to be saved in no other way, I commit myself into Thy hands, O God, my Father! Take me, and do with me as Thou seest to be for Thy glory. I consecrate myself forever to Thy service, and trust for acceptance in the merits of Thy Son.

Samuel I. Prime

Father, Son, Acceptance

"Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 231, 1895.

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To cut off the sinner from all reliance upon himself, his merits and his powers; and throw him, naked and helpless, into the hands of the Holy Spirit to lead him to Christ in faith; should be the one great aim of the ministry.

Ichabod Spencer

Cutting, Hands, Naked

Ichabod Smith Spencer (1851). “A Pastor's Sketches”, p.236

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