A Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Nature makes merit, and fortune puts it to work.
Related Quotes
Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go well, but a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.
Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally, I would we could do so for her benefits are mightily misplaced and the bountiful blind girl doth most mistake in her gifts to women. 'Tis true for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly. Nay, now thou goest from Fortunes office to Natures. Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature.
But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,
Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:
Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,
And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!
Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune.
However great the advantages given us by nature, it is not she alone, but fortune with her, which makes heroes.
Fortune is no real thing.
But men who cannot bear what comes to them
In Nature's way, give their own characters
The name of Fortune.
The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.
A lofty birth or a large fortune portend merit, and cause it to be the sooner noticed.
It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
There can be no doubt that probability increases with practice. Fortune favours the brave, fortune favours the prepared mind, and fortune favours those who work the hardest.
This is the merit and distinction of art: to be more real than reality, to be not nature but nature's essence.
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
If poverty makes man groan, he yawns in opulence. When fortune exempts us from labor, nature overwhelms us with time.
It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
If merit is not recognised, still it is merit, and it ought to be honoured as such; but if it is rewarded, it becomes valuable in the eyes of all, and everybody is encouraged to pursue that course in which merit obtains its due reward.
Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means - and in any context, whether it's judicial or otherwise - I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit to the system.
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