Speak little and well if you wish to be esteemed a person of merit.

Speak little and well if you wish to be esteemed a person of merit.

View the whole scene, with critic judgment scan,
And then deny him merit if you can.
Where read more

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.

Thy father's merit sets thee up to view,
And shows thee in the fairest point of light,
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Thy father's merit sets thee up to view,
And shows thee in the fairest point of light,
To make thy virtues, or thy faults, conspicuous.

The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself.

The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself.

We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make of them.

We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make of them.

He who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain read more

He who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of ten thousand prayers

Merit is much more cheaply acknowledged than rewarded

Merit is much more cheaply acknowledged than rewarded

Surely, sir,
There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends;
For, being not propped by read more

Surely, sir,
There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends;
For, being not propped by ancestry, whose grace
Chalks successors their way, nor called upon
For high feats done to th' crown, neither allied
To eminent assistants, but spiderlike
Out of his self-drawing web, 'a gives us note,
The force of his own merit makes his way,
A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys
A place next to the king.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.