#Merit Quotes

“If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.”

“Good wine needs no bush.”

“Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!”

“The undeserver may sleep when the man of action is called on.”

“Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove.”

“Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity.”

“The persons who constitute the natural aristocracy, are not found in the actual aristocracy, or, only on its edge; as the chemicalenergy of the spectrum is found to be greatest just outside of the spectrum.”

“That is honor's scornWhich challenges itself as honor's bornAnd is not like the sire. Honors thriveWhen rather from our acts we them deriveThan our foregoers.”

“If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.”

“The force of his own merit makes his way-a gift that heaven gives for him.”

“There is always room for a man of force and he makes room for many. Society is a troop of thinkers and the best heads among them take the best places.”

“Men of high learning and abilities are few in every country; and by taking in those who are not so, the able part of the body have their hands tied by the unable.”

“No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.”

“You can take any line of business and skill and the ones who do it the best are the ones who get the most money for it.”

“It is never possible to guarantee success, it is only possible to deserve it.”

“For I had often said that the best argument I knew for an immortal life was the existence of a man who deserved one as well as Child did.”

“The right of commanding is no longer an advantage transmitted by nature; like an inheritance, it is the fruit of labors, the price of courage.”

“When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen.”

“To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it.”

“Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.”

“Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.”

“Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.”

“Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.”

“There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.”

“It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblences to merit.”

“Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.”

“Virtue is not hereditary.”

“Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the good player.”

“When a highly successful leader retires after a long career, it is very unlikely that his successor will be of comparable caliber. Anyone of similar ability and drive would have gone somewhere else, instead of waiting in the wings for years for a chance to show his own leadership.”

“We must have kings, we must have nobles; nature is always providing such in every society; only let us have the real instead of the titular. In every society some are born to rule, and some to advise. The chief is the chief all the world over, only not his cap and plume. It is only this dislike of the pretender which makes men sometimes unjust to the true and finished man.”

“I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.”

“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.”

“The merit of those who fill a space in the world's history, who are borne forward, as it were, by the weight of thousands whom they lead, shed a perfume less sweet than do the sacrifices of private virtue.”

“Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.”

“All men are equal in nature, and also in original sin. It is in the merits and demerits of their actions that they differ.”

“When we do not know a person - and also when we do - we have to judge his size by the size and nature of his achievements, as compared with the achievements of others in his special line of business - there is no other way.”

“Only those books come down which deserve to last . All the gilt edges, vellum and morocco, all the presentation copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date.”

“The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.”

“No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.”

“Wealth does not bring excellence, but that wealth comes from excellence.”

“The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.”

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

“You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's.”

“The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.”

“More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.”

“My respect for human beings is based not on the colour of a man’s skin nor authority he may wield, but purely on merit.”

“Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.”

“I have the world heavyweight title not because it was 'given' to me, not because of my race or religion, but because I won it in the ring through my own boxing ability.”

“If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone.”

“The implements to him who can handle them.”