Charm strikes the sight, but merit wins the soul.
The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes.
What is merit? The opinion one man entertains of another.
It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.
Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Merit, however inconsiderable, should be sought for and rewarded. Methods are the master of masters.
Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.
The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.
In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent toward their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it.
Her great merit is finding out mine; there is nothing so amiable as discernment.
It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.
If you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it.
Where we can compete on merit, we do very well.
Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.
or simply: