Merit Quotes - Page 35

• Men of real merit, and whose noble and glorious deeds we are ready to acknowledge, are yet not to be endured when they vaunt their own actions.

  Aeschines

  Real, Men, Vaunt

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• 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.

  William Benton Clulow

  Learning, People, Chinese

  William Benton Clulow (1843). “Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion”, p.434

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• It is possible to indulge too great contempt for mere success, which is frequently attended with all the practical advantages of merit itself, and with several advantages that merit alone can never command.

  William Benton Clulow

  Success, Advantage, Command

  William Benton Clulow (1843). “Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion”, p.154

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• Legal business has, from the beginning of time, been profitable - to those who have conducted it; because it is concerned with things that touch men's passions very deeply, and because men are willing to pay, and pay highly, for wisdom and skill in the conduct of it. The real merits of the Norman lawyers were, not altruism, but ability, energy, and enthusiasm for their work.

  Edward Jenks

  Real, Passion, Men

  Edward Jenks (1922). “A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919”

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• The ideal garden is one in which a collection of trees, shrubs and plants have been procured and allotted to the best space available and are so arranged and tended that they are seen to their advantage, each in relation to the other. Every plant, of whatever shape or size, should be chosen not only for its individual merits but for its power to enhance the charms of neighbouring plants by contrast or combination in foliage or in flower colour.

  Penelope Hobhouse

  Flower, Garden, Space

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• A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Inspiration, Men, Awakening

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• ... alas! in the exercise of the arts, industry scarce bears the name of merit.

  Elizabeth Inchbald

  Art, Exercise, Names

  Elizabeth Inchbald (1998). “A Simple Story”, p.30, OUP Oxford

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• Another merit of home is that it preserves the diversity between individuals. If we were all alike, it might be convenient for the bureaucrat and the statistician, but it would be very dull, and would lead to a very unprogressive society.

  Bertrand Russell

  Home, Diversity, Would Be

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.46, Routledge

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• We hate merit while it is with us; when taken away from our gaze, we long for it jealously.

  Horace

  Hate, Taken, Long

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• To buried merit rise the tardy bust.

  Samuel Johnson

  Learning, Buried

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• See nations slowly wise, and meanly just, to buried merit raise the tardy bust.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Buried, Raises

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.62, Univ of California Press

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• 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.

  Samuel Johnson

  Stars, Distance, Greatness

  Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.217, Harvard University Press

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• Extol not riches then, the toil of fools,
  The wise man's cumbrance, if not snare, more apt
  To slacken virtue, and abate her edge,
  Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise.

  John Milton

  Wise, Men, Fool

  John Milton (1853). “The Poetical works”, p.386

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• I think that in an Internet age, content is content. As long as you can stand up on the merits of what you're doing right at that moment and aren't just relying on your success in doing something else, it's all good; people will respect you.

  Riz Ahmed

  Thinking, Long, People

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• The bravery founded upon the hope of recompense, upon the fear of punishment, upon the experience of success, upon rage, upon ignorance of dangers, is common bravery, and does not merit the name. True bravery proposes a just end, measures the dangers, and, if it is necessary, the affront, with coldness.

  Francois de la Noue

  Ignorance, Punishment, Names

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• do get over the idea that size has any value or merit. It is the enemy of most of the best things in the world - it is the enemy of the good life.

  Ann Bridge

  Good Life, Ideas, Enemy

  Ann Bridge (2013). “Singing Waters”, p.18, A&C Black

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• Reputation ... is as often gained without merit as lost without a crime.

  Laetitia Pilkington

  Reputation, Crime, Lost

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• the most censorious are generally the least judicious; who, having nothing to recommend themselves, will be finding fault with others. No man envies the merit of another, that has any of his own.

  Ellin Devis

  Men, Envy, Criticism

  Ellin Devis (1801). “The Accidence: Or First Rudiments of English Grammar. Designed for the Use of Young Ladies”, p.131

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• The most distinguished merit of those two officers was their respective prowess, of the one in the combats of Bacchus, of the other in those of Venus.

  Edward Gibbon

  Two, History, Venus

  Edward Gibbon (1821). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.394

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• The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe subordination of rank and office, from the titled slaves who were seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary power.

  Edward Gibbon

  History, Office, Thrones

  Edward Gibbon (2009). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition”, p.325, Modern Library

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• 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.

  Edward Gibbon

  History, Heaven, Saint

  Edward Gibbon (1998). “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.388, Wordsworth Editions

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• The most successful of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to which he was entitled by the superiority either of merit or of power. He was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his equals; and the title of Khan expresses, in the language of the North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal descendants of the renowned Zingis.

  Edward Gibbon

  Wall, Military, Successful

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V2: the History Focus”, p.354, 谷月社

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• But when I am alone, I do not have the effrontery to consider myself an artist at all, not in the grand old meaning of the word: Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt, Goya were great painters. I am only a public clown-a mountebank. I have understood my time and have exploited the imbecility, the vanity, the greed of my contemporaries. It is a bitter confession, this confession of mine, more painful than it may seem. But at least and at last it does have the merit of being honest.

  Pablo Picasso

  Artist, Vanity, Greed

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• Democracy has at least one merit, namely that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him.

  Bertrand Russell

  Stupid, Democracies Have, Democracy

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.66, Routledge

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• The value of science to a republican people, the security it gives to liberty by enlightening the minds of its citizens, the protection it affords against foreign power, the virtue it inculcates, the just emulation of the distinction it confers on nations foremost in it; in short, its identification with power, morals, order and happiness (which merits to it premiums of encouragement rather than repressive taxes), are considerations [that should] always [be] present and [bear] with their just weight.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Encouragement, Order, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1990). “Public and private papers”, Vintage Books

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