Individual Merit Quotes

A man is great by deeds, not by birth.

I believe that everyone should be treated as an individual. Women should be treated equally in the right to vote, sure. But if I'm paying to see a comedy, then I just want to see who's funniest, with everyone treated equally.

A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.

There must be no division by class hatred, whether this hatred be that of creed against creed, nationality against nationality, section against section, or men of one social or industrial condition against men of another social and industrial condition. We must ever judge each individual on his own conduct and merits, and not on his membership in any class, whether that class be based on theological, social, or industrial considerations.

Away with the cant of 'Measures not men!'-the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along.

The test of any man lies in action.

You're not getting any recognition as a point guard if you ain't winning.

Systems don't win, players do.

Commerce is so far from being beneficial to arts, or to empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their history shows, for the above reason of individual merit being its great hatred. Empires flourish till they become commercial, and then they are scattered abroad to the four winds.

Democracy runs on equality; freedom and excellence run on inequality. The tension between those two realities shapes almost every real problem in education today. How do we respect every person’s equal dignity and opportunity while also recognizing and cultivating individual excellence? Nearly every university in America has decided to answer that question by abandoning excellence. Harvard hands out more A’s than any other grade. Yale gives nearly 60 percent of students straight A’s. Princeton no longer requires Greek or Latin to major in the classics. Columbia proudly ditched the SAT. In our leading institutions, honors are handed out like candy while calculus is quietly dropped.

What really matters is who you are when you step on the field, and I will let my bat and my glove speak for themselves.

Ultimately, it's your talent that counts.

Don't be concerned who is watching you. The triumphs and merits of others belong to them - as do yours to you. Make the most of what you've got.

I have never voted a party line. I vote on the individual and the issues.

The idea of racial inferiority or superiority is foreign to me. I can't feel inferior or superior to another man because of race, or in any way antagonistic to him. I judge by the individual, not by his race, and have always done so. I would rather have one of my children marry into a good family of any race than into a bad family of any other race.

How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions?

Individual performance doesn't mean anything to me.

Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.

I don't care how good you play, if the team is losing, it doesn't matter.

Everybody, be they female, whatever your religion, whatever your nationality, you're an individual, and if you perform well, we want you, and if you don't, we don't.

Believe me, if I looked good, it's not an accident.

Even though I enjoy that head-to-head competition part, one of the things that drove me to long track was if I won or if I lost I want to know it's all on my shoulders and it didn't have anything to do with anybody else.

My body of work speaks for itself. I don't need anybody in the media to tell me I'm a good defensive player.

I like winning or losing, failing or succeeding on my own merit.

I have the world heavyweight title not because it was 'given' to me, not because of my race or religion, but because I won it in the ring through my own boxing ability.