I have voted on the merits of legislation, voting both 'with' and 'against' my party.
Abigail Spanberger
Now an infinite happiness cannot be purchased by any price less than that which is infinite in value; and infinity of merit can only result from a nature that is infinitely divine or perfect.
Adam Clarke
I have been measured on my merit and on my accomplishments.
Adena Friedman
Television is a business and, financially speaking, they have decisions and considerations that go far beyond the creative merit of the show. But at the same time, you'd like to believe in a man's word. When he shakes your hand and says he's going to stay with it, and doesn't, it's really frustrating in a way.
Adrian Pasdar
I understand how a first impression is often just that: a quick snapshot that, on its own merit, is meaningless.
Adriana Trigiani
Higher education should be based on quality, not quantity; receive merit-based funding; and be free of unnecessary bureaucracy. Not the least of the benefits of educational reform is to foster the pride of achievement at national and international levels.
Ahmed Zewail
I had written a book. For various reasons, the publishing industry had decided that my book was going to be 'important.' The novel had taken me 12-and-a-half years to write, and after being with the book for so long, I had no real perspective on the merits or demerits of what I had written. I hoped it was good, but feared that it wasn't.
Akhil Sharma
So that's why one of my rules of parody writing is that it's gotta be funny regardless of whether you know the source material. It has to work on its own merit.
Al Yankovic
Art can do the opposite of glamourise the unattainable: it can show us anew the genuine merit of life as we're forced to lead it. It is advertising for the things we really need.
Alain de Botton
Before I met Ayn Rand, I was a logical positivist, and accordingly, I didn't believe in absolutes, moral or otherwise. If I couldn't prove a proposition with facts and figures, it was without merit.
Alan Greenspan
Today it is evident that we have two political parties: the Tax and Spenders and the No-Tax and Spenders. Neither party is fiscally conservative. Is there no room at the inn for an honest conservative? A conservative who makes the case for smaller government on its merits and not just as the fallback option when fiscal bankruptcy threatens?
Alex Tabarrok
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Alexander Pope
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.
It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.
Alfred North Whitehead
Say I lived until 80 and read a book a month seriously, that means I was looking at 480 books left in my life. If I had only 480 left, I wanted to stop sifting through material I didn't have confidence in and turn my attention to those that I know merited my reading.
Amor Towles
The great esteem in which the Nobel prizes are universally held is due to the fact that for several generations they have been given purely on scientific merit and not through lobbying and politicking. I do hope that it will stay this way, and the prizes will never be given according to the number of votes in live TV contests!
Andre Geim
I don't have an extraordinary degree of self-confidence, but I know the gift I have been given from God and I try to share it with as many people as possible. Having a great voice is not a merit. I don't think it is a merit.
Andrea Bocelli
The thing I like most about football is it's a meritocracy.
Andrew Luck
Britain's great postwar meritocratic experiment was broad-based, but it was in politics that the change was most dramatic.
Andrew Neil
As one of the grammar-school generation, I grew up as part of a postwar meritocracy that steadily infiltrated the citadels of power.
As class barriers tumbled and Britain became a more meritocratic society, young, well-educated Scots were best placed to exploit the new social mobility.
I think, at the end of the day, if voters don't see the substance and the merit of the policies you're advocating, it won't matter what you do on social media.
I see the merit in religion, and I see the need for faith and hope and sometimes people who are more snide look at people who are religious, particularly people in rock bands, and they'll say, 'Oh that's dumb, you believe in whatever,' but I think everybody believes in something.
It's hard to know what's going to be replaced by technology tomorrow. It feels like we're all at risk. I feel only safe as an emeritus professor!
There is huge merit in both Eastern and Western medicine, and I've taken a little bit from both.
At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it.
If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit Awards.
Anybody could put their thoughts on a record out there. I think the world of reviews and opinions is now very much a meritocracy.
I urge the enactment of a civil service law so explicit and so strong that no partisan official will dare evade it, basing all rewards, promotions and salaries solely on merit, on loyalty and industry in the public service.
Leaders are judged on merit and not on caste or family names.
It's possible to fund companies for $100,000 and find out rather quickly whether or not the idea they are pursuing has merit. Scientists now work much faster.
Let's make health care a meritocracy. Access to the best care goes to people who did what they could to avoid becoming ill.
Go fail or succeed on your own merits, be your own man.
At the end of the day all I've ever asked for is to be allowed to succeed and fail on my own merits. Not based on what somebody else wants me to do or thinks I should do. Or, what they want me to say or what they think I should say.
Like pictures, men should be judged by their merits and not by their defects.
Throughout the early and mid-1990s, the Clinton administration debated the merits of paying for AIDS testing and counseling of vulnerable populations overseas.
I've learned to think, I may succeed or fail, but I'm going to do so on the merit of my own instincts.
One of the best things about being an actor is that it's a meritocracy.
Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.
Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.
Whatever may be the merits of a religious system, its effects upon the mass of mankind must depend in an important degree upon its teachers. All instruction and all truth, except simple mathematical truth, is modified by the medium through which it is conveyed.
One of our main objectives is to restore meritocracy within research and academia, where cronyism is also widespread. We also want to give money back to public research that is dying.
I was at the Smithsonian for twenty years, and I'm still at the Smithsonian as a curator emeritus, and I still plan to figure out what that means for me at this point in my life.
Opening a complaint for investigation in no way implies that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has made a determination about the merits of the complaint.
I am a naturalized U.S. citizen, which means that, unlike native-born citizens, I had to prove to the U.S. government that I merited citizenship.
Just wearing expensive and glamorous clothes do not merit for me to do a film. There has to be a good story and a good role.
I'm hoping to see some minorities in executive offices in positions of power, people who see the merit of projects with minority themes. That may or may not happen.
In K-12, almost everybody goes to local schools. Universities are a bit different because kids actually do pick the university. The bizarre thing, though, is that the merit of university is actually how good the students going in are: the SAT scores of the kids going in.
The bottom line is that any business should be a meritocracy. The best and brightest. Period.
