Top 1200 Literary Merit Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes.

What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.

Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.

There is no merit to discipline under ideal circumstances. I must have it in the face of death or it is worthless.

In my experience and observation, senior appointments are rarely based entirely on merit.

A beautiful soul has no other merit than its own existence.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

I like winning or losing, failing or succeeding on my own merit.

Woman's weakness, not man's merit, oftenest gains the suitor's victory.

Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature.

The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.

Ask any soldier. To kill a man is to merit a woman.

Sometimes witches merit saving. Quite often, actually. You'd be surprised.

He is always the severest censor of the merit of others who has the least worth of his own.

Football is a metaphor for the kind of country we want to create. It's based on merit.

I may remind you that history is not a branch of literature. The facts of history, like the facts of geology or astronomy, can supply material for literary art; for manifest reasons they lend themselves to artistic representation far more readily than those of the natural sciences; but to clothe the story of human society in a literary dress is no more the part of a historian as a historian, than it is the part of an astronomer as an astronomer to present in an artistic shape the story of the stars.

Praise without merit is more harmful than unearned criticism.

There can be no merit in believing something which you can neither explain nor understand.

The mark of extraordinary merit is to see those most envious of it constrained to praise.

I'm a proud Greek. I carry my Hellenism like a badge of merit.

...crystal and hearts would lose all their merit in the world if it were not for their fragility.

If a soul is not clothed with the teachings of the Church he cannot merit to have Jesus seated in him.

Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.

But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business.

The Iranian people have a proud past. They merit a great future.

Merit rather enforces respect than attracts fondness.

Those who mistake their good luck for their merit are inevitably bound for disaster.

I would argue, for perspective's sake, that the arc of a really literary work is precisely that it both intensely reflects, and simultaneously transcends the conditions of its making. I would say that is the difference between literature and other kinds of writing. That is what the literary is - it ultimately doesn't matter what his circumstances were. And the thing that you were just saying about being sympathetic to Brontë and the fact that she could only write what she wrote when she wrote it... that's true. But look at that novel, which means so much to so many people.

I'm now much more excited about genre distinctions. What I still see breaking down are more the hierarchical arrangements of genres. That is, "There is literary fiction, and then there are lesser genres." I'm much more clear on the idea that literary fiction is itself a genre. It is not above other genres. It is down there in the muck with all the other genres, and it's doing the wonderful things that it does, but to give it a Y-axis, to make it high and low, just seems absurd. I stand by that.

We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit

Life is much like batting, treating every ball on merit.

Art is completely subjective. It's up to the viewer to judge whether or not it has merit.

I get asked about my weight endlessly. There is no story. It doesn't merit so much talk.

This [service to oppressed] is the writer's task, and, if he fulfills it as he should, he acquires no merit from it.

In America, what makes us so successful is the innovation, the competition, the focus on merit.

Pride in boasting of family antiquity, makes duration stand for merit.

Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love

The UFC and WEC didn't give me anything. Everything I conquered was my merit and from my team.

The idea of a rational bureaucracy, of skill, merit, and consistency, is essential to all modern states.

To be loved, we should merit but little esteem; all superiority attracts awe and aversion.

An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.

To attach no importance to public opinion, is a proof that you do not merit its suffrage.

Merit should count more than academic background.

... alas! in the exercise of the arts, industry scarce bears the name of merit.

If you want the best results in an organization, you must rely solely on merit.

The best evidence of merit is a cordial recognition of it whenever and wherever it may be found.

Politics is the art of achieving prestige and power without merit.

It is far more honest to be undeservedly ignored than to be honoured without merit.

America... Cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.

...Fatherland without freedom and merit is a large word with little meaning.

He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and not a burden.

Clearly our greatest need is not more regulations in order to merit salvation.

Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.

Honourable mention encourages science, and merit is fostered by praise.

Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.

Guessing right for the wrong reason does not merit scientific immortality.

If you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it.