Quotes
Quotes about Merit
To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.
He who allows himself to be insulted deserves to be so; and insolence, if unpunished, increases! [Lat., Qui se laisse outrager, merite qu'on l'outrage Et l'audace impunie enfle trop un courage.]
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?
Amongst the sons of men how few are known Who dare be just to merit not their own.
For though to smatter ends of Greek Or Latin be the rhetoric Of pedants counted, and vain-glorious, To smatter French is meritorious. - Samuel Butler (1),
Those who mistake their good luck for their merit are inevitably bound for disaster.
Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.
Thy father's merit sets thee up to view, And shows thee in the fairest point of light, To make thy virtues, or thy faults, conspicuous.
View the whole scene, with critic judgment scan, And then deny him merit if you can. Where he falls short, 'tis Nature's fault alone Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own.
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits, If any man obtain that which he merits, Or any merit that which he obtains.
On their own merits modest men are dumb.
The favor of princes does not preclude the existence of merit, and yet does not prove that it exists. [Fr., La faveur des princes n'exclut pas le merite, et ne le suppose pas aussi.]
The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool. [Fr., Du meme fonds dont on neglige un homme de merite l'on sait encore admirer un sot.]
The world rewards the appearance of merit oftener than merit itself. [Fr., Le monde recompense plus souvent les apparences de merite que le merite meme.]
There is a season for man's merit as well as for fruit. [Fr., Le merite des hommes a sa saison aussi bien que les fruits.]
There is merit without elevation, but there is no elevation without some merit. [Fr., Il y a du merite sans elevation mais il n'y a point d'elevation sans quelque merite.]
By merit raised To that bad eminence.
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.]
The sufficiency of merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' 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 th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin?
Surely, sir, There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends; For, being not propped by ancestry, whose grace Chalks successors their way, nor called upon For high feats done to th' crown, neither allied To eminent assistants, but spiderlike Out of his self-drawing web, 'a gives us note, The force of his own merit makes his way, A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys A place next to the king.
The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself.
We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make of them.
Charm strikes the sight, but merit wins the soul.
