Merit Quotes - Page 34

• ... 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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Horace

  Hate, Taken, Long

  4 Copy quote

• To buried merit rise the tardy bust.

  Samuel Johnson

  Learning, Buried

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Laetitia Pilkington

  Reputation, Crime, Lost

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. Our government does not copy our neighbors', but is an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit

  Pericles

  Hands, Government, Justice

  109 Copy quote

• There is nothing - no program, no hobby, no vice, no crime - that does not 'create jobs'. Tsunamis, computer viruses and shooting convenience store clerks all 'create jobs'. So that claim misses the plot; it applies to all so is an argument in favor of none. Instead of an argument on the merits, it is an admission that one has no such arguments.

  Chris Horner

  Jobs, Missing, Clerks

  4 Copy quote

• The chief merit of language is clearness.

  Galen

  Language, Chiefs, Clearness

  Galen, Arthur John Brock (1991). “On the natural faculties”, Loeb Classical Library

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Focus on something that has high value to someone else, be really rigorous in making that assessment, because natural human tendency is wishful thinking, so the challenge to entrepreneurs is telling what's the difference between really believing in your ideals and sticking to them as opposed to pursuing some unrealistic dream that doesn't actually have merit, be very rigorous in your self analysis, certainly being extremely tenacious, and just work like hell. Put in 80-100 hours every week. All these things improves the odds of success

  Elon Musk

  Dream, Believe, Thinking

  68 Copy quote

• Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Privilege, Possessing

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty”, p.12, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• If its length be not considered a merit, it hath no other.

  Edmund Waller

  Art, Entertainment, Length

  7 Copy quote