It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth.

I am thankful for this title of champion emeritus and proud I never lost my title.

You know, I believe that technology is the great leveler. Technology permits anybody to play. And in some ways, I think technology - it's not only a great tool for democratization, but it's a great tool for eliminating prejudice and advancing meritocracies.

In terms of merit, sports has mathematical statistics. That's how you know who the best player is.

In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Los Angeles is such a great meritocracy. Where can someone with my background - don't have the right family background, the right religion, the right provenance or whatever you want to call it - I come here and I'm accepted. The city's been good to me. And I want to give back.

It's easy to mock a man who has founded a religion based on John Coltrane, who considers 'A Love Supreme,' whatever its merits as a jazz album, to be holy scripture.

The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.

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

The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

The intelligent ruler makes the law select men and makes no arbitrary appointment himself; he makes the law measure merits and makes no arbitrary judgment himself.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

Liberal that I am, I support health-care reform on its merits alone. My liberal blood boils, for example, when I read that half of the personal bankruptcies in this country are brought on, in part, by medical expenses.

The sacrifices made by veterans and their willingness to fight in defense of our nation merit our deep respect and praise - and to the best in benefits and medical care.

Legal immigration should emphasize merit and meeting the needs of the U.S., including specific unmet workforce needs.

Access to our civil courts has been severely restricted by the combination of: the removal of legal aid from some cases based on their type, not their merit; a high financial threshold for the receipt of legal aid in other cases; and a failure to deliver a safety net for vulnerable individuals by the exceptional funding arrangements.

We have a legal immigration system that's outdated, it's primarily based on whether you have family members living here. In the 21st century, it has to be more of a merit-based system, and that is why our legal immigration system is in need of modernization.

I believe that President Clinton considered the legal merits of the arguments for the pardon as he understood them, and he rendered his judgment, wise or unwise, on the merits.

Jealousy would be far less torturous if we understood that love is a passion entirely unrelated to our merits.

There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly the immense gifts and intelligence of some of the people who live in our most abject conditions. Maybe there are some things at work in deciding who gets to be society's winners and who gets to be society's losers that don't have to do with merit.

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.

We shall never be understood or respected by the English until we carry our individuality to extremes, and by asserting our independence, become of sufficient consequence in their eyes to merit a closer study than they have hitherto accorded us.

Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits.