MERIT QUOTES III

quotations about merit

It is clear that merit is rooted in God and is bestowed on the believer through the grace of Christ.

DENNIS E. TAMBURELLO

Union With Christ


The next thing to having merit ourselves, is to take care that the meritorious profit by us; for he that rewards the deserving, makes himself one of the number.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon; or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those Who Think

Tags: Charles Caleb Colton


All merit ceases the moment we perform an act for the sake of its consequences.

WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT

Letters to a Female Friend

Tags: Wilhelm von Humboldt


I know not why we should delay our tokens of respect to those who merit them, until the heart that our sympathy could have gladdened has ceased to beat. As men cannot read the epitaphs inscribed upon the marble that covers them, so the tombs that we erect to virtue often only prove our repentance that we neglected it when with us.

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: Edward Bulwer Lytton


As whole societies have come to represent themselves as giant credentialized meritocracies, rather than as systems of predatory extraction, we bustle about, trying to curry favor by pretending we actually believe it to be true.

DAVID GRAEBER

The Utopia of Rules


Charms always strike the sight; but merit wins the soul.

ALEXANDER POPE

A Concordance to the Poems of Alexander Pope

Tags: Alexander Pope


Man's concept of merit is subjective rather than objective. Despite formal education and even religious and philosophical studies, man persists in his condition of intellectual and moral confusion. He creates in and around himself a genuine intellectual and moral quagmire. Truth, much less its helper, merit, becomes foreign to his consciousness. People are content to be image seekers, not genuine thinkers, so true merit is wanting.

ABRAM ALLEN

Truity: The Essence of Truth


The spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Hamlet

Tags: William Shakespeare


It is by inborn merit that a man acquires preeminence; whereas he who acts by precepts is a man of naught, swaying from this side to that, never setting down a firm, well-directed foot; he attempts much, but to little purpose.

PINDARUS

attributed, Day's Collacon


Merit does not consist in extensiveness of knowledge, but in doing the best according to the lights afforded.

ABRAHAM TUCKER

The Light of Nature Pursued


The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.

ST. AUGUSTINE

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: St. Augustine


Real merit of any kind cannot long be concealed; it will be discovered, and nothing can depreciate it, but a man's exhibiting it himself. It may not always be rewarded as it ought, but it will always be known.

PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE

The Elements of a Polite Education

Tags: Philip Dormer Stanhope


Meritocracies are necessary if you want to get anything done. In many dysfunctional workplaces, workers themselves will set up what I call a shadow meritocracy of the business. Shadow meritocracies are high-functioning but unacknowledged work groups that arise in response to a failing worker (who's often in a key position or in management), in reaction to an unjust hierarchy, or in reaction to a rigid bureaucratic structure that can't respond quickly to change. I don't use the word shadow to suggest that there's something shady going on; I use it because these underground meritocracies can't be seen in the light of day. They'r not in the organizational chart, there are no job titles for their members, and you can't even identify them by the relative size of their members' offices or paychecks. You can only see them out of the corner of your eye--in nuances, undercurrents, interactions, whispered communications, and workflow.

KARLA MCLAREN

The Art of Empathy


Merit is always relative to a particular end.

ROBERT K. FULLINWIDER

Leveling the Playing Field


From the perspective of new members, the opportunities offered by meritocracies are inspiring. It is hugely attractive to members when anyone can join a community and further themselves and their reputation based upon great work and participation.

JONO BACON

The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation


The favor of princes does not preclude the existence of merit, and yet does not prove that it exists.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

Les Caractères

Tags: Jean de La Bruyère


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.

CHARLES CHURCHILL

The Rosciad

Tags: Charles Churchill


It is almost always supposed that the distribution of innate abilities and the chances to acquire proper education will be less than equitable, so that meritocracies are not devoid of aristocracies and hierarchies.

STANFORD M. LYMAN

The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil


If it isn't life's business to reward merit, why should it be life's business to give us warm, comfortable feelings towards its end? What possible evolutionary purpose could nostalgia serve?

JULIAN BARNES

The Sense of an Ending

Tags: Julian Barnes


If we would honor merit, we must not judge by appearances; a vizored villain may seem fair.

G. BROWN

attributed, Day's Collacon