Merit Quotes - Page 12

• Only in America does 'health' 'care' 'reform' begin with the hiring of 16,500 new IRS agents tasked with determining whether your insurance policy merits a fine.

  Mark Steyn

  America, Irs, Agents

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• ...it ought not to appear wonderful if many, both Jews and others, who lived before Christ, and many also who have lived since his time, but to whom he has never been revealed, should be saved by faith in God alone: still however, through the sole merits of Christ, inasmuch as he was given and slain from the beginning of the world, even for those to whom he was not known, provided they believed in God the Father.

  John Milton

  Father, World, Faith In God

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• We may think it humility not to realize that the Lord is bestowing gifts upon us. Let us understand very, very clearly, how this matter stands. God gives us these gifts for no merit of ours. Let us be grateful to His Majesty for them, for, unless we recognize that we are receiving them, we shall not be aroused to love Him. And it is a most certain thing that, if we remember all the time that we are poor, the richer we find ourselves, the greater will be the profit that comes to us and the more genuine our humility.

  Teresa of Avila

  Grateful, Humility, Thinking

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• The Goddess of wealth is unsteady, and so is the life breath. The duration of life is uncertain, and the place of habitation is uncertain; but in all this inconsistent world religious merit alone is immovable.

  Chanakya

  Religious, World, Duration

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• The Devil writes down our sins - our Guardian Angel all our merits. Labor that the Guardian Angel's book may be full, and the Devil's empty.

  John Vianney

  Book, Writing, Angel

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• It is certain that success naturally confirms in us a favourable opinion of our own abilities. Scarce any man is willing to allot to accident, friendship, and a thousand causes, which concur in every event without human contrivance or interposition, the part which they may justly claim in his advancement. We rate ourselves by our fortune rather than our virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly produced by imaginary merit.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Events, May

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.68

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• The story of the Jews in the Bible is replete with incidents of their ingratitude to God for His gifts to them: incidents that just as repeatedly merit and receive punishment.

  Elliott Abrams

  Punishment, Stories, Incidents

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• The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one.

  Robert McNamara

  Issues, Trying, World

  "McNamara Recalls, and Regrets, Vietnam" by R. W. APPLE JR., www.nytimes.com. 1995.

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• We're moving away from a credentialed society to a merit society.

  Nolan Bushnell

  Moving, Moving Away

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• Praise without merit is more harmful than unearned criticism.

  Roger Ebert

  Criticism, Praise

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• Say of him what you please, but I know my child's failings. I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my little child. How should you know how dear he can be when you try to weigh his merits against his faults? When I must punish him he becomes all the more a part of my being. When I cause his tears to come my heart weeps with him. I alone have a right to blame and punish, for he only may chastise who loves.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Children, Heart, Trying

  Rabindranath Tagore (2017). “Delphi Collected Works of Rabindranath Tagore (Illustrated)”, p.34, Delphi Classics

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• No one can bar me from joyfully proceeding on what the great masters have left us; after all, to rediscover everything again, should be understood to be unfounded. But one should however proceed on merit, and not simply repeat wat was. All genius, sincere, deserves his place, even though maybe later in life.

  Felix Mendelssohn

  Later In Life, Bars, Genius

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• I think the Clintons are going to make their decision based on the merits. And their focus, like mine, is on middle class jobs. We`re in a different world than 1994. The China we dealt with in 1994 is a lot different than the China today in 2015.

  Chris Matthews

  Jobs, Thinking, Class

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• You really have to wonder why we even bother to get up in the morning. I mean, really: Why work? Simply to buy more stuff? That's just not enough. Look at us all. What's the common assumption that got us all from there to here? What makes us deserve the ice cream and running shoes and wool Italian suits we have? I mean, I see all of us trying so hard to acquire so much stuff, but I can't help but feeling that we didn't merit it.

  Douglas Coupland

  Running, Morning, Mean

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• I propose that a teacher's pay be tied to merit, not tenure. And I propose that a teacher's employment be tied to performance, not just showing up.

  Arnold Schwarzenegger

  Teacher, Employment, Pay

  "Teachers Unions Blast Governor's Merit Pay Plan" by Cara Mia DiMassa and Joel Rubin, articles.latimes.com. January 10, 2005.

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• In K-12, almost everybody goes to local schools. Universities are a bit different because kids actually do pick the university. The bizarre thing, though, is that the merit of university is actually how good the students going in are: the SAT scores of the kids going in.

  Bill Gates

  School, Kids, Different

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• It's hard to judge literary merit.

  Henry Rollins

  Literary Merit, Judging, Hard

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• I don't think women are interesting enough to merit a book. They're more of a pamphlet sex.

  Alex Linder

  Sex, Book, Thinking

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• Sentimentalists ... adopt whatever merit is in good repute, and almost make it hateful with their praise. The warmer their expressions, the colder we feel.... Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize the Pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debauchee of sentiment?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Expression, Insane, Lessons

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.57, Harvard University Press

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• Object to merit and distinction, and you're setting your face against quality, independence, originality, genius against all the richness and variety of life. When you hold back the successful, you penalize those who need help.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Ambition, Successful, Independence

  Margaret Thatcher (1997). “The collected speeches of Margaret Thatcher”, HarperCollins

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• Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thoughts, that's their definition, essentially. No artistic merit, causes sexual thoughts. Hmm... Sounds like... every commercial on television, doesn't it? You know, when I see those two twins on that Doublemint commercial? I'm not thinking of gum. I am thinking of chewing, so maybe that's the connection they're trying to make.

  Bill Hicks

  Thinking, Two, Trying

  "Porn misses out on its own xxx domain" by Jemima Kiss, www.theguardian.com. April 2, 2007.

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• Our modern democratic ideal is based on the hope that inequalities will be based on merit more than inheritance or luck.

  Thomas Piketty

  Democratic Ideals, Luck, Inheritance

  "French economist Thomas Piketty compares US economy to Europe in the Gilded Age". Associated Press Interview, www.oregonlive.com. April 23, 2014.

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• Verbal representations of such places or scenes may, or may not, have the merit of accuracy; but photographic presentments of them will be accepted by posterity with an undoubting faith.

  Alexander Gardner

  May, Scene, Accepted

  Alexander Gardner (1866). “Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War”, p.11, Courier Corporation

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• The animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren. All animals are fruit of the creative action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect and they are as near to God as men are.

  Pope John Paul II

  Animal, Men, Creative

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• Imposed philosophical morality (laws/rules) will not save the world. Only a calculated tangible plan to alter our circumstances so such actions pose no merit will stop immoral behaviour.

  Peter Joseph

  Philosophical, Law, Behaviour

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