Merit Quotes - Page 37

• 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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• The contempt of riches in the philosophers was a concealed desire of revenging on fortune the injustice done to their merit, by despising the good she denied them.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Desire, Done, Riches

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• Self-love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them; and we judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Friends, Self, Judging

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• The lover's pleasure, like that of the hunter, is in the chase, and the brightest beauty loses half its merit, as the flower its perfume, when the willing hand can reach it too easily. There must be doubt; there must be difficulty and danger.

  Walter Scott

  Love, Flower, Hands

  Sir Walter Scott (1871). “Waverley Novels”, p.352

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• Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty, clear the way for merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by difficulties...

  Lord Chesterfield

  White, Way, Modesty

  "Manners and speech or maxims extracted from Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son". Book by Lord Chesterfield, 1884.

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• If you wish particularly to gain the good graces and affection of certain people, men or women, try to discover their most striking merit, if they have one, and their dominant weakness, for every one has his own, then do justice to the one, and a little more than justice to the other.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, People, Justice

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• A man's fortune is frequently decided by his first address. If pleasing, others at once conclude he has merit; but if ungraceful, they decide against him.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Pleasing Others, Addresses

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