quotations about merit
Meritocracies are rooted in a belief that performance can be measured quantitatively and fairly.
Janice A. Klein
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True Change
Did you ever scratch the end of a piece of timber, slightly elevated, with a pin? Though scarcely heard at one end, it was distinctly heard at the other. Just so it is with any merit, excellence, or good work; it will be sooner heard of, and applauded, and rewarded on the other side of the globe, than by your immediate acquaintances.
RHODA BROUGHTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
It is almost always supposed that the distribution of innate abilities and the chances to acquire proper education will be less than equitable, so that meritocracies are not devoid of aristocracies and hierarchies.
STANFORD M. LYMAN
The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil
Merit is something due a person for a performance. If it is not received, an injustice is committed.
R. C. SPROUL
The R. C. Sproul Collection
The favor of princes does not preclude the existence of merit, and yet does not prove that it exists.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
Les Caractères
The force of his own merit makes his way.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry VIII
As whole societies have come to represent themselves as giant credentialized meritocracies, rather than as systems of predatory extraction, we bustle about, trying to curry favor by pretending we actually believe it to be true.
DAVID GRAEBER
The Utopia of Rules
The best evidence of merit is a cordial recognition of it whenever and wherever found.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Merit hid from the public gaze has little advantage over sloth laid in the grave.
HORACE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Meritocracies are necessary if you want to get anything done. In many dysfunctional workplaces, workers themselves will set up what I call a shadow meritocracy of the business. Shadow meritocracies are high-functioning but unacknowledged work groups that arise in response to a failing worker (who's often in a key position or in management), in reaction to an unjust hierarchy, or in reaction to a rigid bureaucratic structure that can't respond quickly to change. I don't use the word shadow to suggest that there's something shady going on; I use it because these underground meritocracies can't be seen in the light of day. They'r not in the organizational chart, there are no job titles for their members, and you can't even identify them by the relative size of their members' offices or paychecks. You can only see them out of the corner of your eye--in nuances, undercurrents, interactions, whispered communications, and workflow.
KARLA MCLAREN
The Art of Empathy
By merit raised
To that bad eminence.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Man's concept of merit is subjective rather than objective. Despite formal education and even religious and philosophical studies, man persists in his condition of intellectual and moral confusion. He creates in and around himself a genuine intellectual and moral quagmire. Truth, much less its helper, merit, becomes foreign to his consciousness. People are content to be image seekers, not genuine thinkers, so true merit is wanting.
ABRAM ALLEN
Truity: The Essence of Truth
The world oftener rewards the appearance of merit than merit itself.
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Merit does not consist in extensiveness of knowledge, but in doing the best according to the lights afforded.
ABRAHAM TUCKER
The Light of Nature Pursued
From the perspective of new members, the opportunities offered by meritocracies are inspiring. It is hugely attractive to members when anyone can join a community and further themselves and their reputation based upon great work and participation.
JONO BACON
The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation
The principle of merit is generally viewed as a neutral and fair standard whereby people may be measured against each other and it is unfair, in terms of this standard which is beneficial to society, to prefer the less qualified.
JOHAN RABE
Equality, Affirmative Action and Justice
Merit is always relative to a particular end.
ROBERT K. FULLINWIDER
Leveling the Playing Field
Whoever gains the palm by merit, let him hold it.
LORD NELSON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Success always attends merit.
TITUS LIVY
attributed, Day's Collacon
If it isn't life's business to reward merit, why should it be life's business to give us warm, comfortable feelings towards its end? What possible evolutionary purpose could nostalgia serve?
JULIAN BARNES
The Sense of an Ending