Famous quotes containing the words merit, order and/or list:
“Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“In order to become spoiled ... a child has to be able to want things as well as need them. He has to be able to see himself as a being who is separate from everyone else.... A baby is none of these things. He feels a need and he expresses it. He is not intellectually capable of working out involved plans and ideas like “Can I make her give me...?” “If I make enough fuss he will...?” “They let me do ... yesterday and I want to do it again today so I’ll....””
—Penelope Leach (20th century)
“The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935)