Merit

Famous quotes containing the word merit:

    One merit in Carlyle, let the subject be what it may, is the freedom of prospect he allows, the entire absence of cant and dogma. He removes many cartloads of rubbish, and leaves open a broad highway. His writings are all unfenced on the side of the future and the possible. Though he does but inadvertently direct our eyes to the open heavens, nevertheless he lets us wander broadly underneath, and shows them to us reflected in innumerable pools and lakes.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The past is necessarily inferior to the future. That is how we wish it to be. How could we acknowledge any merit in our most dangerous enemy: the past, gloomy prevaricator, execrable tutor?
    Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944)

    What I shall have to say here is neither difficult nor contentious; the only merit I should like to claim for it is that of being true, at least in parts.
    —J.L. (John Langshaw)