A Quote by Jean de la Bruyere
A lofty birth or a large fortune portend merit, and cause it to be the sooner noticed.
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There is nothing which continues longer than a moderate fortune; nothing of which one sees sooner the end than a large fortune.
Nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a large one.
All men agree that a just distribution must be according to merit in some sense; they do not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with freemen, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.
There is a sort of homely truth and naturalness in some books which is very rare to find, and yet looks cheap enough. There may benothing lofty in the sentiment, or fine in the expression, but it is careless country talk. Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art. Some have this merit only.
How do you make a small fortune in the wine business? Start with a large fortune and buy a winery.
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.
Nature makes merit, and fortune puts it to work.
First the amendment of their own minds. For the removal of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind.
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.
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!
It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors.
It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
Beauty is fading, nor is fortune stable; sooner or later death comes to all.
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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