Merit Quotes - Page 37

• Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit to imitate the sayers.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Expression, Skills

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1979). “Emerson's Literary Criticism”, p.27, U of Nebraska Press

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• Only where there is pecuniary equality can the distinction of merit stand out.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Standing Out, Distinction

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• The case of Andrews is really a very bad one, as appears by the record already before me. Yet before receiving this I had orderedhis punishment commuted to imprisonmentand had so telegraphed. I did this, not on any merit in the case, but because I am trying to evade the butchering business lately.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Punishment, Trying, Receiving

  "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 7" by Abraham Lincoln, New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1953.

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• Merit, God knows, is very little rewarded.

  Charles Lamb

  Littles, God Knows, Knows

  Charles Lamb, Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd (1856). “The Life and Letters”, p.111

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• There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Europe, America, People

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.98, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Though strength be wanting, the will to action
  Merits praise.

  Ovid

  Action, Praise

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• Fame is an accident; merit a thing absolute.

  Herman Melville

  Fame, Accidents, Absolutes

  Herman Melville (1855). “Mardi: And a Voyage Thither”, p.93

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• The entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names; as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.

  Herman Melville

  Character, Men, Names

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.874, Delphi Classics

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• It is not a merit to tolerate, but rather a crime to be intolerant.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Tolerance, Crime, Tolerate

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• A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Men, Ideas, Opposites

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1913*). “Golden Hours with Samuel Taylor Coleridge”

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• In a living civilization there is always an element of unrest, for sensitiveness to ideas means curiosity, adventure, change. Civilized order survives on its merits and is transformed by its power of recognizing its imperfections.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Mean, Adventure, Ideas

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

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• Should ardent spirits be everywhere banished from the list of drinks, it will be a revolution not the least remarkable in this revolutionary age, and our country will have its full share in that as in other merits.

  James Madison

  Country, Alcohol, Age

  James Madison (1865). “Letters and other writings of James Madison”, p.384

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• Man is clearly made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. And the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our Author and our end.

  Blaise Pascal

  Thoughtful, Men, Thinking

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• In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map of Europehas endured profound rearrangements and is perhaps on the brink of enduring yet others, where so many threatening and new problems appear everywhere, you will admit it may be demanded of a writer that he be more than a fine wit who makes us forget in idle and byzantine discussions on the merits of pure form.

  Marcel Proust

  Art, Profound, Byzantine

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• The institution of representative government to us seems an essential part of democracy, but the ancients never thought of it. Its immense merit was that it enabled a large constituency to exert indirect power, and thus made possible the distribution of political responsibility throughout the great states of modern times.

  Bertrand Russell

  Responsibility, Government, Political

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

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• It is a mystery to me how a theologian can be praised for having brought himself to disbelieve dogmas. I've always thought that those who have brought themselves to believe in dogmas merit the true recognition owing a heroic deed.

  Karl Kraus

  Believe, Heroic Deeds, Religion

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms”

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• A white lie is always pardonable. But he who tells the truth without compulsion merits no leniency.

  Karl Kraus

  Truth, Lying, White

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms”

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• Morality is a burglar's tool whose merit lies in never being left behind at the scene of the crime.

  Karl Kraus

  Lying, Tools, Morality

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & one-and-a-half truths: selected aphorisms”

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• Each instance of sexual harassment has to be judged on its merits. Facts, timing, motives, credibility: all must be considered before we make up our own minds what to believe.

  Anna Quindlen

  Believe, Mind, Facts

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• The artist is today and has been for many years, despite his absence of merit, simply a spoiled child. So many honors, so much money bestowed on men without souls and without education.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Education, Art, Children

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• Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one's self-sovereignty; the right to an equal place, everywhere conceded--a place earned by personal merit, not an artificial attainment by inheritance, wealth, family and position.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Character, Responsibility, Self

  Speech before Senate Judiciary Committee, 18 Jan. 1892

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• Heroism, or military glory, is much admired by the generality of mankind. They consider it as the most sublime kind of merit. Menof cool reflection are not so sanguine in their praises of it.

  David Hume

  Military, Reflection, Sublime

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.521, Delphi Classics

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• Nature makes merit, and fortune puts it to work.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Fortune

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• The mark of extraordinary merit is to see those most envious of it constrained to praise.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Praise, Envious, Mark

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• We are not fond of praising, and never praise any one except from interested motives. Praise is a clever, concealed, and delicate flattery, which gratifies in different ways the giver and the receiver. The one takes it as a recompense of his merit, and the other bestows it to display his equity and discernment.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Clever, Different, Way

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