Merit Quotes - Page 3

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

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Ambition, Use, Despicable

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• The more merit, the less affection.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Affection

  Baltasar Gracian (2006). “The Art of Worldly Wisdom”, p.49, Shambhala Publications

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• There is a proud modesty in merit.

  John Dryden

  Proud, Modesty

  John Dryden, C. B., Esquire Charles BATHURST (1852). “Selections from the poetry of Dryden, including his plays and translations. [The editor's preface signed: C. B., i.e. Charles Bathurst.]”, p.129

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• Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity.

  Jean-Henri Fabre

  Ignorance, Perfect, Feelings

  Jean-Henri Fabre (1911). “Souvenirs Entomologiques”, London : A. and C. Black

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• The earmark favor factory needs to be boarded up and demolished, not turned over to new management that may or may not have a better eye for earmarks with 'merit.'

  Tom Coburn

  Eye, Needs, Favors

  "For Republicans, the Moment for Reform Has Arrived" by Tom Coburn, www.realclearpolitics.com. September 24, 2010.

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• Dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music

  Charles Baudelaire

  Dancing, Mysterious, Being Human

  Charles Baudelaire (1986). “La Fanfarlo”

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• They merit more praise who know how to suffer misery than those who temper themselves in contentment.

  Pietro Aretino

  Suffering, Contentment, Misery

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• 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.

  Margaret Cavendish

  Sex, Aggravation, Literature

  Margaret Cavendish (2000). “Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader”, p.52, Broadview Press

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• 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.

  Matthew Simpson

  Opportunity, America, May

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• The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.

  Samuel Richardson

  Thinking, Delight, World

  Samuel Richardson (1755). “A collection of the moral and instructive sentiments, maxims, cautions, and reflexions, contained in the histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison: Digested under proper heads, with references to the volume, ...”, p.392

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• The market system requires that people be committed and willing to work hard. Inherent with that is what I call a merit system, which I think gives people the greatest opportunity.

  Lee R. Raymond

  Hard Work, Opportunity, Thinking

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• There's a proud modesty in merit; averse from asking, and resolved to pay ten times the gifts it asks.

  John Dryden

  Asking, Proud, Pay

  John Dryden (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of John Dryden (Illustrated)”, p.3874, Delphi Classics

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• Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Motivational, Time

  1603-4 Iago to Cassio. Othello, act 2, sc.3, l.262-4.

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• 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.

  Jose Eduardo Dos Santos

  Views, Competition, Individual

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• I told that girl, in the kindest, gentlest way, that I could not consent to deliver judgment upon any one's manuscript, because an individual's verdict was worthless. It might underrate a work of high merit and lose it to the world, or it might overrate a trashy production and so open the way for its infliction upon the world. I said that the great public was the only tribunal competent to sit in judgment upon a literary effort, and therefore it must be best to lay it before that tribunal in the outset, since in the end it must stand or fall by that mighty court's decision any way.

  Mark Twain

  Girl, Fall, Effort

  Mark Twain “Carnival of Crime in Ct”, Library of Alexandria

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• Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such: it is an accident, not a property, of a man; like light, it can give little or nothing, but at most may show what is given.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Tests, Fame

  "The Works of Thomas Carlyle".

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• While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; While quacks of State must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The Rights of Woman merit some attention.

  Robert Burns

  Kings, Children, Humorous

  Robert Burns, Robert Chambers (1838). “The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. To which are Now Added, Notes Illustrating Historical, Personal, and Local Allusions. [The Editor's Preface Signed: R. C., I.e. Robert Chambers.]”, p.85

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  God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.

  John Calvin

  Race, Punishment, Justice

  "Civility: A Cultural History". Book by Benet Davetian (p. 157), April 18, 2009.

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• 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.

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Men, World, Impossible

  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Isobel Grundy (1997). “Selected letters”, Penguin Group USA

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• It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out. Of all the creatures ever made he (man) is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he is the only one...that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

  Mark Twain

  Sports, Dog, Pain

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• Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale... Love loves; this is its nature.

  Howard Thurman

  Life, Marriage Love, Awareness

  Howard Thurman (2014). “A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious Experience and Public Life”, p.181, Beacon Press

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

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Ego, Saving, Way

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• I love those who do not know how to live for today.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Love, Live For Today, No Patience

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• We shall never be understood or respected by the English until we carry our individuality to extremes, and by asserting our independence, become of sufficient consequence in their eyes to merit a closer study than they have hitherto accorded us.

  Henry Lawson

  Wisdom, Eye, Independence

  Henry Lawson, Colin Arthur Roderick (1972). “Collected Prose: Autobiographical and other writings, 1887-1922”, Angus & Robertson

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• Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Dance, Dancing, Ballet

  Charles Baudelaire (2001). “The Prose Poems and La Fanfarlo”, p.22

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