A Quote by Samuel Johnson

He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.

Samuel Johnson

Quote Topics

Find His Justify Lawful Merit Once Power Resist Resistance Soon Want Wants Will

Quote Author

Samuel Johnson
English - Writer
September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784

You will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or not merit of their own to depend on . . .

Oliver Goldsmith

The moment you begin a serious study of the scriptures, you will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the straight and narrow path.... When you begin to hunger & thirst after those words, you will find life in greater abundance.

Ezra Taft Benson

Every musician out there wants to be judged on the merit of their songwriting, the merit of their performing abilities.

Laura Jane Grace

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.

Keshub Chandra Sen

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.

Sonia Sotomayor

Intellectuals feel they are the most valuable people, the ones with the highest merit, and that society should reward people in accordance with their value and merit. But a capitalist society does not satisfy the principle of distribution 'to each according to his merit or value.'

Robert Nozick

Mere bashfulness without merit is awkward; and merit without modesty, insolent. But modest merit has a double claim to acceptance, and generally meets with as many patrons as beholders.

Joseph Addison

Only by spiritual practice can we break through our karma and the effects of the causes we have made. Only then can we escape from them. It matters not whether you have acquired any merit. Merit is merit. Karma is karma. Nonetheless, if one practices the Quan Yin Method, one can be liberated regardless of having any merit or not. It is so logical, so scientific.

Ching Hai

People don't want to have to justify their privileges; they don't want to have to justify having access to the power and resource that wealth brings. And by not talking about it, they are able to hold onto their power without being questioned, and I think that makes them feel more secure.

Jamie Johnson

No man, however enslaved to his appetites, or hurried by his passions, can, while he preserves his intellects unimpaired, please himself with promoting the corruption of others. He whose merit has enlarged his influence would surely wish to exert it for the benefit of mankind. Yet such will be the effect of his reputation, while he suffers himself to indulge in any favourite fault, that they who have no hope to reach his excellence will catch at his failings, and his virtues will be cited to justify the copiers of his vices.

Samuel Johnson

To be an object of hatred and aversion to their contemporaries has been the usual fate of all those whose merit has raised them above the common level. The man who submits to the shafts of envy for the sake of noble objects pursues a judicious course for his own lasting fame. Hatred dies with its object, while merit soon breaks forth in full splendor, and his glory is handed down to posterity in never-dying strains.

Thucydides

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.

Friedrich Nietzsche

What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to Power, and power itself in man. What is bad? — All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? — The feeling that power is increasing — that resistance has been overcome.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The arrogance that accompanies merit offends us even more than the arrogance of people who are lacking in merit: since merit itself offends us.

Friedrich Nietzsche

A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise himself; but must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round some man of great power and interest.