quotations about merit
He who thinks to be justified by any strength or merit of his own, and not by faith, puts himself in the place of God.
WILLIAM FAREL
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
Yet what great merit is to be found in these pillagers, plunderers, and cut-throat conquerors? unless indeed it consist of their temerity, cruelty, avarice, and ambition?
PAUL BROWN
The Radical
We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
speech in Dallas, Texas, A Square Deal, April 5, 1905
Merit is often an obstacle to fortune, because it is always productive of two bad effects, envy and fear; envy in those who cannot rise to the same degree of perfection, and fear in those who are established, and who dread that by advancing a man of more merit than themselves, they may be supplanted.
PHILIP QUARLL
attributed, Day's Collacon
The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
Les Caractères
Persons of the least intrinsic merit are usually the most vain, and the most easily inflated with hollow praise.
ELIAS LYMAN MAGOON
Proverbs for the People
Merit has rarely risen of itself, but a pebble or a twig is often quite sufficient for it to spring to the highest ascent.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Aphorisms
He didn't at all see why the busy bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the Bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn't do it -- nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes.
CHARLES DICKENS
Bleak House
Merit rarely goes unrewarded.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Bushrod Washington, January 15, 1783
We should try to succeed by merit, not by favor. He who does well will always have patrons enough.
PLAUTUS
Amphitryon
The only merit is wisdom and wisdom does not come in heaps.
ALFRED SCHMIELEWSKI
The Forbidden Prophecy
Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such: it is an accident, not a property of a man.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Goethe
True merit, like the light of the glowworm, shines conspicuous to all except the object which emits it.
MRS. E. RICORD
attributed, Day's Collacon
True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes.
GEORGE SAVILE
Miscellanies
There is a season for man's merit as well as for fruit.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Maxims
An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof. If you reject it you are unhappy, if you accept it you are undone.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
So merit is all right, as long as it is not antecedent to grace. The tough question is rather: how is it, if there is no antecedent merit, that one particular person gets divine grace but another does not?
PHILLIP CARY
Inner Grace
The merit of all things lies in their difficulty.
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
The Three Musketeers
It never occurs to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Faust
Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Othello