Quotes
Quotes about Merit
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,--'t is a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit rais'd
To that bad eminence.
Envy will merit as its shade pursue,
But like a shadow proves the substance true.
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe,
Are lost on hearers that our merits know.
Whoe'er amidst the sons
Of reason, valour, liberty, and virtue
Displays distinguish'd merit, is a noble
Of Nature's own creating.
Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit.
My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character [as an author], he deserved to have his merits handsomely allowed.
Can't I another's face commend,
And to her virtues be a friend,
But instantly your forehead lowers,
As if her merit lessen'd yours?
No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings lean'd to Virtue's side.
The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back,
His sense of your great merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
On their own merits modest men are dumb.
It sounds like stories from the laud of spirits
If any man obtains that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
. . . . . . . . .
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures,--love and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,--
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.
There is endless merit in a man's knowing when to have done.
Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.
The Mischievous Dog A dog used to run up quietly to the heels of everyone he met, and to bite them without notice. His master suspended a bell about his neck so that the Dog might give notice of his presence wherever he went. Thinking it a mark of distinction, the Dog grew proud of his bell and went tinkling it all over the marketplace. One day an old hound said to him: Why do you make such an exhibition of yourself? That bell that you carry is not, believe me, any order of merit, but on the contrary a mark of disgrace, a public notice to all men to avoid you as an ill mannered dog. Notoriety is often mistaken for fame.
Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.
He who boasts of his ancestry praises the merits of another.
Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can fear reproof who merit praise.
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.
Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
