quotations about merit
Charms always strike the sight; but merit wins the soul.
ALEXANDER POPE
A Concordance to the Poems of Alexander Pope
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
The force of his own merit makes his way.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry VIII
Merit is something due a person for a performance. If it is not received, an injustice is committed.
R. C. SPROUL
The R. C. Sproul Collection
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
If you wish that your own merit should be recognized, recognize the merit of others.
G. P. MORRIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
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 world oftener rewards the appearance of merit than merit itself.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
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
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
By merit raised
To that bad eminence.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
The spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
ST. AUGUSTINE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Meritocracies are rooted in a belief that performance can be measured quantitatively and fairly.
Janice A. Klein
True Change
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
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
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
Merit is always relative to a particular end.
ROBERT K. FULLINWIDER
Leveling the Playing Field
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
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