Merit Quotes

Can't I another's face commend, Or to her virtues be a friend, But instantly your forehead louers, As if her merit lessen'd yours?

There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.

It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.

No work is of such merit as to instruct from a mere cursory perusal.

I think there's a lot of merit in an international economy and global markets, but they're not sufficient because markets don't look after social needs.

Giving no pain to any creature, let him slowly accumulate spiritual merit, for the sake ,of acquiring a companion to the next world, just as the white ant ,gradually raises its hill.

A work of real merit finds favor at last.

The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, when we but praise ourselves in other men.

There is small merit in mocking goodness, tweaking charity; it is much more comic to deprive people of their petty little existence for no reason at all, for a lark.

Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be criticised.

This is the merit and distinction of art: to be more real than reality, to be not nature but nature's essence.

In ethics all individual humans are rightly seen, not only as beings to whom things matter, but as beings who accordingly merit concern and solicitude.

The Sage expects no recognition for what he does; he achieves merit but does not take it to himself; he does not wish to display his worth.

Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors.

Were I more conversant with literature and its great names, I could go on quoting them ad infinitum and acknowledge my debt for the merit you have been generous enough to find in my work

Art is completely subjective. It's up to the viewer to judge whether or not it has merit.

Must one rash word, the infirmity of age, throw down the merit of my better years?

Terrible times in which priests no longer merit the praise of poets and in which poets have not yet begun to be priests.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

The measure of artistic merit is the length to which a writer is willing to go in following his own compulsions.

Whatever merit there is in anything that I have written is simply due to the fact that when I was a child my mother daily read me a part of the Bible and daily made me learn a part of it by heart.

Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!

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.

We should try to succeed by merit, not by favor. He who does well will always have patrons enough. [Lat., Virtute ambire oportet, non favitoribus. Sat habet favitorum semper, qui recte facit.]

There is a proud modesty in merit.

There's a proud modesty in merit; averse from asking, and resolved to pay ten times the gifts it asks.

Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.

Ill-humor is nothing more than an inward feeling of our own want of merit, a dissatisfaction with ourselves which is always united with an envy that foolish vanity excites.

The world sees only the reflection of merit; therefore when you come to know a really great man intimately, you may as often find him above as below his reputation.

What I like about the Order of the Garter is that there is no damned merit about it.

Her great merit is finding out mine; there is nothing so amiable as discernment.

Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.

It is the glory and merit of some men to write well and of others not to write at all.

Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.

The flatterer easily insinuates himself into the closet, while honest merit stands shivering in the hall or antechamber.

Of my merit On that pint you yourself may jedge: All is, I never drink no sperit, Nor I haint never signed no pledge.

The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.

What I like least is dealing with publishers who simply don't want collaborations regardless of their merit.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.

Praise in the beginning is agreeable enough; and we receive it as a favor; but when it comes in great quantities, we regard it only as a debt, which nothing but our merit could extort.

Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue

What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.

Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature.

Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.

The man that hails you Tom or Jack, and proves by thumps upon your back how he esteems your merit, is such a friend, that one had need be very much his friend indeed to pardon or to bear it.

It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.

The West has given us the liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit, and human satisfaction.

But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.

The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.