Meritocracy Quotes

While property continues to be pretty equally divided, and a considerable share of information pervades the community, the tendency of people’s suffrage will be to elevate merit even from obscurity. As riches increase and accumulate in a few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in greater degree considered only as a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

The doctrine of equality! ... But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice ... "Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal".

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston phone book than the faculty of Harvard University.

The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity.

I am obliged to confess that I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. Not, heaven knows, because I hold lightly the brainpower or knowledge or generosity or even the affability of the Harvard faculty: but because I greatly fear intellectual arrogance, and that is a distinguishing characteristic of the university which refuses to accept any common premise.

Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.

I would sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.

It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.

We must restore the emotional relationship that people have to the idea of America, that no matter where you come from, no matter where you live, that you have access to the same opportunities that somebody who is born in privilege.

I think the world is run by 'C' students.

He who does not work shall not eat

Good people hire people better than themselves. So A players hire A+ players. But others hire below their skills to make themselves look good. So B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc.

The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.

A man is great by deeds, not by birth.

In today's world, having money has allowed people who are extremely uncool to think that they're cool and carry it like that. People who really are cool and people who really are artists and have ideas have to literally turn in their cool card to society just to make it past the age of 28.

The idea that experts should manage society has ancient roots, going back to Plato’s philosopher kings in his Republic. To Plato, this meant a ruling class trained from birth to properly manage the state. To Rousseau, it meant the general will set out in his Social Contract. To Hegel, it meant a state responsible for the moral development of citizens. To Rawls, it meant a society that structures its basic rules to fairly distribute liberties and opportunities. To Lippmann, it meant an elite managing complex modern societies on behalf of a public he believed lacked the capacity for rational decision-making. To Sunstein, it meant experts pushing citizens to make wise choices through a series of “nudges.” All these ideas believe in empowering wise and virtuous experts to chart the nation’s course, manage society, make national plans, and sometimes restrain individuals so the greater system thrives.

Be successful! I judge men only by the results of their actions.

Superior ability is not the exclusive possession of any one race or any one class.

One of the things I most admire about America is they have created a genuine melting pot society, a country of opportunity; you can be of any religion, colour, ethnicity, persuasion and make it to the top of your chosen field. And that's something I admire about America and hope they continue with.

Capitalism demands the best of every man - his rationality - and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him.

None but those who work are entitled to eat.

In a thriving economy, birth need not be destiny.

Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom, and in the end superior ability has its way.

Well, I don't believe in patronage.