68 Merit Quotes

The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.

There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.

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.

Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior.

Asking 'who ought to be the boss' is like asking 'who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.

Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst.

But whither am I strayed? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise; Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built; Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign, Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.

There are no moral or intellectual merits. Homer composed the Odyssey; if we postulate an infinite period of time, with infinite circumstances and changes, the impossible thing is not to compose the Odyssey, at least once.

It is all one to me if a man comes from Sing Sing Prison or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history.

If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.

Ron Sirak, a golf writer and friend, was quoted as saying, 'Annika is no longer a female golfer. She's a golfer.' That's truly all I ever aspired to be.

'When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent'

When Ling was communicating to any person the signs by which messengers might find him, he was compelled to add, 'the neighbourhood in which this contemptible person resides is that officially known as 'the mean quarter favoured by the lower class of those who murder by treachery',' and for this reason he was not always treated with the regard to which his attainments entitled him, or which he would have unquestionably received had he been able to describe himself as of 'the partly-drained and uninfected area reserved to Mandarins and their friends.'

There will be a prize of half a crown for the longest essay, irrespective of any possible merit.

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

A man who knows he's making money for other people ought to get some of the profits he brings in. Don't make any difference if it's baseball or a bank or a vaudeville show. Its business, I tell you. There ain't no sentiment to it. Forget that stuff.

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

I don't think, sir, that you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.

The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law. For the good of the service itself, for the protection of those who are intrusted with the appointing power against the waste of time and obstruction to the public business caused by the inordinate pressure for place, and for the protection of incumbents against intrigue and wrong, I shall at the proper time ask Congress to fix the tenure of the minor offices of the several Executive Departments and prescribe the grounds upon which removals shall be made during the terms for which incumbents have been appointed.

Our attitude toward immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as their talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.

You knew that what is given or granted can be taken away, that what is begged can be refused; but that what is earned is kept. (12-10-1966)

I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

Commerce is so far from being beneficial to Arts or to Empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their History shows, for the above Reason of Individual Merit being its Great Hatred. Empires flourish till they become Commercial & then they are scattered abroad to the four winds

In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities.

The winning of honor, is but the revealing of a man's virtue and worth, without disadvantage.

Only help him who is not an idler.

The more and the more that he wrote, and the deeper and the deeper that he dived, Pierre saw the everlasting elusiveness of Truth; the universal lurking insincerity of even the greatest and purest written thoughts. Like knavish cards, the leaves of all great books were covertly packed. He was but packing one set the more; and that a very poor jaded set and pack indeed. So that there was nothing he more spurned, than his own aspirations; nothing he more abhorred than the loftiest part of himself. The brightest success, now seemed intolerable to him, since he so plainly saw, that the brightest success could not be the sole offspring of Merit; but of Merit for the one thousandth part, and nine hundred and ninety-nine combining and dovetailing accidents for the rest.

Inceptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter adsuitur pannus.

Robert Hughes (Labour MP for Aberdeen North): With regard to the Prime Minister's desire for a classless society and social mobility, will he explain why there are no women in his Cabinet, or is the only woman in his Cabinet the back-seat driver? John Major: In recent years, in all aspects of life in this country, women have been taking a higher profile: in the law, in commerce, in the civil service, in industry and in politics - and that will continue. As those women would wish it to be, they will reach the top on merit - oh yes, and if the hon. Gentleman is patient, he will find women aplenty in top positions in my Government. Indeed, if he had waited awhile, perhaps even to the end of today, he would not have asked that question.

At dinner we talked much of Cromwell, all saying he was a brave fellow and did owe his crown he got to himself, as much as any man that ever got one.

Le succes, qui ne prouve pas toujours le merite, tient souvent davantage au choix du sujet qu'a son execution.

As Themistocles answered Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.'

Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? without the favour of the everlasting Register the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methusaleh's long life had been his only Chronicle.

Les mortels sont egaux; ce n'est pas la naissance, C'est la seule vertu qui fait la difference.

Qui sert bien son pays n'a pas besoin d'aieux.

It is not our background that will count but our individual actions and initiatives. Education is the great leveller: irrespective of origin, it places everyone on the same footing.

He deserved to die except that nothing deserves death

Labour for his pains.

The colour I think of little moment; and am of opinion with our friend Foote, respecting his negro friend, that a good dog, like a good candidate, cannot be of a bad colour.

God is merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.

We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.

Great services are not cancelled by one act or by one single error.

Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.

If there is equality, it is in His love, not in us.

Were all men equal to-night, some would get the start by rising an hour earlier to-morrow.

Il y a peu de femmes dont le merite dure plus que la beaute.

Thy modesty 's a candle to thy merit.

Ostentatious men who are governed by self-interest will combine, whether white or black, and the generous and selfless will similarly unite. True men, black and white, will treat one another with loyalty and tenderness, out of a sense of merit and the pride of everyone who honors the land in which we were born, black and white alike. Negroes, who now use the word 'racist' in good faith, will stop using it when they realize it is the only apparently valid argument that weak men, who honestly believe that Negroes are inferior, use to deny them the full exercise of their rights as men. White and black racists would be equally guilty of racism.

My maxim was, la carriere est ouverte aux talents, without distinction of birth or fortune.

More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.

All men are equal before God: wisdom, talents, and virtue are the only difference between them.

My motto has always been: A career open to all talents, without distinctions of birth.

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

I'm against a homogenized society, because I want the cream to rise.

The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.

For the presidency, I don't think it really matters if it's a man or a woman, it has to be the right person for the job