"Demerit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... necessary to utter more than that. No hint of wickedness, deformity, or any physical or moral demerit; merely the name and tone of mockery: "Oh, Jean-ah Poquelin!" and while they tumbled one over another in their needless haste to fly, he would rise carefully from his seat, while the aged mute, with downcast face, ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... she,—"I thank you much, Mynheer, though I am 'feared you reckon mine understanding higher than it demerit: yet I fear there shall scantly be opportunity this morrow. I have divers dishes to cook that shall be cold for this even, and a deal of ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... gard them.' Another sympathetic chronicler, after pouring out the vials of his wrath on the clause which guaranteed the protection of French private property, lamented that 'by these means the poor souldiers lost all their hopes and just demerit ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... this latter capacity he also had committed the offense of not reporting some of the class for indulging in unauthorized sport. The offense was not so grave as mine, and, besides, his military record was very much better. So he was let off with a large demerit mark and a sort of honorable retirement to the office of quartermaster of the battalion. I still think, as I did then, that McPherson's punishment was the more appropriate. Livingston was one of those charming, amiable fellows with whom nobody could well find any fault, ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... for it by the civil magistrate, yet he doth not, therefore, fall from his ecclesiastical office or dignity; of which sort experience showeth many; or else such as being punished according to their quality and demerit, a man, by necessary consequence, falleth from the ecclesiastical function and dignity which before he had: this was Abiathar's case, and the case of so many as, being justly punished by proscription, incarceration, or banishment, are secundario ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... them with little ceremony. The three presented themselves flushed of cheek and somewhat rumpled as to hair, but properly gowned and apologetic, just as grace was ended. To be late for grace only meant one demerit; the first course came higher, and the second higher still. ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... shews the brighter and goodlier for the presence of one that is not so wise, but may even derive pleasure and diversion therefrom. Wherefore as you, my ladies, are one and all most discreet and judicious, I, who know myself to be somewhat scant of sense, should, for that by my demerit I make your merit shew the more glorious, be more dear to you, than if by my greater merit I eclipsed yours, and by consequence should have more ample license to reveal myself to you as I am; and therefore have more patient sufferance on your part ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... others do the same, or seem to do so, at least. He had no vanity—which is but an inordinate desire for those qualities that bring self-respect, and often the result of conscious demerit—but he knew himself, and knew that he was entitled to his own good opinion. He was every inch a man, strong, intelligent and brave to temerity, with a reckless disregard of consequences, which might have been dangerous had it ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... nature has given as much of old mother Eve's talent for persuasion and imposition as enables her to baffle all the schemes of her aged admirer and unite herself to a young gallant more suited to her age. The "Country Wife" of Wycherly is an imitation of this piece, with the demerit on the part of the English author of having rendered licentious a plot which, in Moliere's hands, is ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... be in proportion to His merits; therefore it is infinite. Now there is no merit in paying a debt which we owe; and hence the fullest discharge of our duty deserves no reward. On the other hand, there is demerit in refusing to pay a debt; and therefore any short-coming deserves an infinite penalty (vi. 155). Without examining whether our duty is proportional to the perfection of its object, and is irrespective of our capacities, there is one vital objection to this doctrine, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... and the fires and the gas had been lighted, and the meals spread, at the accustomed hours. At the accustomed hour, too, the bell had sounded thrice to call the family to worship. And at the thought, a pang of regret for his demerit seized him; he remembered the things that were good and that he had neglected, and the things that were evil and that he had loved; and it was with a prayer upon his lips that he mounted the steps and thrust ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... death will be sweeter to me than life on earth without lover, honour or happiness. Neither war nor death has robbed me of my lover; no sin or fault of mine has robbed me of my honour; neither error nor demerit of mine has made me lose my joy. 'Tis cruel fate that has rendered the most favoured of men thankless, and has caused me to receive the contrary of that ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... of two equally authoritative rules, let us proceed to consider what dangerous latitude of interpretation is allowed to the followers of either of them. Those who believe that the merit or demerit of each separate action depends on that action's separate consequences, need seldom be at a loss for a pretext for committing the most heinous of crimes. A husband who, hating his wife, had his hate returned, and loving another woman, had his love returned, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... nature of man, left to itself, or destitute of divine aid, necessarily determines him to evil, or renders him incapable of good, what becomes of the free-will of man? According to such principles, man can neither merit nor demerit. By rewarding man for the good he does, God would only reward himself; by punishing man for the evil he does, God would punish him for not giving him grace, without which he could not ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... compositions speak for themselves, and must stand or fall by their own worth or demerit: thus far I feel highly gratified by your favourable opinion. But my pretensions to virtue are unluckily so few, that though I should be happy to merit, I cannot accept, your applause in that respect. One passage in your letter struck me forcibly: you mention the two Lords Lyttleton ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... idleness 63 Rectification of false ideals.—The conqueror 64 The luxury of ostentation 64 Glorification of the demi-monde 66 Study of ideals 67 The human mind more capable of distinguishing right from wrong than of measuring merit and demerit 67 Fallibility of moral judgments 68 Rules ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... inconsistent with the precepts of innate rectitude and the practice of external policy: let it not then be conjectured that because we are unassuming, we are imbecile; that forbearance is any indication of despondency, or humility of demerit. He that is the most assured of success will make the fewest appeals to favour, and where nothing is claimed that is undue, nothing that is due will be withheld. A swelling opening is too often succeeded by an insignificant conclusion. Parturient mountains have now produced muscipular ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... care a straw about their merit or demerit," said Mr. Galbraith; "poetry is nothing but spoilt prose. What I want to know is, whether they do not suggest a reason for your want of success with Jenny. Do you ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... affects the spectators. It appears to be matter of fact, that the circumstance of UTILITY, in all subjects, is a source of praise and approbation: That it is constantly appealed to in all moral decisions concerning the merit and demerit of actions: That it is the SOLE source of that high regard paid to justice, fidelity, honour, allegiance, and chastity: That it is inseparable from all the other social virtues, humanity, generosity, charity, affability, lenity, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... about the origin, the first principle, both of that which he makes his merit and which we charge as his demerit, the next step is, that I should lay open to your Lordships, as clearly as I can, what the sense of his employers, the East India Company, and what the sense of the legislature itself, has been upon those merits and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the Hebrew, a work which Hetzer had begun. This important piece of scholarly work was published under the title, Alle Propheten nach hebraeischer Sprache verteutscht, in Worms, April 3, 1527, and had a wide circulation and use, its main demerit being that it had ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... beginning. The eyes of Louis XIV go their rounds at every moment, "on arising or retiring, on passing into his apartments, in his gardens,. . . nobody escapes, even those who hoped they were not seen; it was a demerit with some, and the most distinguished, not to make the court their ordinary sojourn, to others to come to it but seldom, and certain disgrace to those who never, or nearly never, came."[2130] Henceforth, the main thing, for the first personages in the kingdom, men ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and in consequence God, at least in His knowledge, has limitations, is not omnipotent. St. Augustine replies confusedly (for the question is undoubtedly insoluble) that we have an illusion of liberty, an illusion that we are free, which suffices for us to acquire merit if we do right and demerit if we do wrong, and that this illusion of liberty is a relative liberty, which leaves the prescience of God, and therefore His omnipotence, absolute. Man is also extremely weak, debilitated, and incapable of ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... manufactures, but even their native commodities, forced to seek for justice many hundred miles by sea and land, rendered in a manner incapable of serving their king and country in any employment of honour, trust, or profit; and all this without the least demerit; while the governors sent over thither can possibly have no affection to the people, further than what is instilled into them by their own justice and love of mankind, which do not always operate; and whatever they please to represent hither ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... prepared himself for some introductory diffuseness, tending to show that Mr. Deane had succeeded by his own merit, and that what he had to say to young men in general was, that if they didn't succeed too it was because of their own demerit. He was rather surprised, then, when his uncle put a direct question ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... well," returned Fred, "that there are some who make merit or demerit the distinguishing marks instead of rank or wealth. I confess that my own notions wholly accord with those of Miss Rosalie. What! are we here so soon?" continued he, as they reached the entrance ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... Illustration of the workings of Sympathy. Mutual sympathy. The Amiable and the Respectable Virtues. How far the several passions are consistent with Propriety. Influences of prosperity and adversity on moral judgments. The Sense of Merit and Demerit. Self-approbation. Love of Praise and of Praiseworthiness. Influence and authority of Conscience. Self-partiality; corrected by the use of General Rules. Connexion of Utility with Moral Approbation. Influence ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... to comfort them: he said, 'I am a minister, and God has sent me to instruct and comfort your mother.' He then sat down on a pack, by the side of the pallet, and taking the hand of the dying Gipsy, discoursed on the demerit of sin, and the nature of redemption. He then pointed her to Christ, the all sufficient Saviour. While the King was doing this, the poor creature seemed to gather consolation and hope: her eyes sparkled with brightness, and her countenance became animated. She looked up; she smiled; ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... went to him on behalf of the Regent and demanded the return of the seals. D'Aguesseau was a little affected and surprised. "Monseigneur," he wrote to the Duke of Orleans, "you gave me the seals without any merit on my part, you take them away without any demerit." He had received orders to withdraw to his estate at Fresnes; the Regent found his mere presence irksome. D'Aguesseau set out at once. "He had taken his elevation like a sage," says St. Simon, "and it was as a sage too that he fell." "The important point," wrote the disgraced magistrate to his ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... gentlemen who have been thus situated, that although they have in truth had no part in the decision, yet the Society and the public will justly attribute a portion of the merit or demerit of their award, to those to ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... was now remembered, Lance had shortly before taken part in, over the grave of an old lay-vicar, who, boy and man, had served the Cathedral for nearly sixty years. Often, too, the poor little fellow seemed struggling with some sense of demerit—whether positive disgrace, or suspicion, or the general Christian feeling of unworthiness, Wilmet and John Harewood could never make out; and they did not choose to speak of these wanderings either to Will or to Mr. Beccles. In the intervals ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dr. Huntington is ranked a Universalist, equally with those who have been named; but he believed in no punishment hereafter, being Calvinistic in his views of the demerit of sin, and of the ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... unrelenting. One was driven by wind and sun; even the clouds took a hand in cudgeling one on. A person must keep at it whether she cared to or not—in actual practice this point never troubled Elliott, who always stopped when she wished to—there were no spectators, and, heaviest demerit of all, ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... he told himself, as he lay awake, thinking, thinking, thinking. "Some one has it in for me, of course. But Dan and I together can't find out who the rascal is. He may try nothing against me again, for weeks, but sooner or later he'll turn another demerit trick against me. Before January I shall be home again, looking ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... demerit and stay after school," Roy continued. "So I vote that we buy some paint and see if we can't paint the heads of our three patrol animals on the three cabins. Then we'll feel more like scouts and not so much like convicts. ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... as a demerit. The second, it was said, might be effected by other means. Bills of exchange and treasury drafts would supply the place of bank notes. Perhaps indeed bank bills would be a more convenient vehicle than treasury orders; but ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... qualities with which he is born; that these are not to be accounted as his, in the sense that he is accountable for them. The son of the dipsomaniac, for instance, is not responsible for the morbid craving that stirs in him. He begins life, so far as responsibility is concerned, so far as merit or demerit is concerned, with a fresh start. He is not responsible for the craving; he is responsible only for assenting to it. True, the pull in his case is incomparably stronger than in others; still he can resist. He is responsible, not for the hideous thing itself, but for the degree in which he yields ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... I could not help giving way to a comparative humour, as I may call it, and to think it very hard that my nearer relations did not take the methods which my cousin Morden kindly took, by inquiring into my merit or demerit, and giving my cause a fair audit before they proceeded ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... condition. Still less is it an attempt to make an appeal for one or another type of economic reform. It is simply a partial view of certain work conditions as they come closest to family life. There is to this writer no more merit or demerit in any form of economic dogmatism than in any special theologic creed. We may all differ, and with reasons sufficient to our thought and without blame, on questions of how we can best attain a true democratization ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... every other species of poetry and composition, the divine Homer has excelled all other writers, he reigns unrivalled in them all, and will for ever be without a competitor; insomuch, that one certain way of judging the merit or demerit of all other authors, is, to enquire how near they have approached, or how far they have fallen short of this standard of perfection in writing. I shall now examine how far you, in your several performances, have succeeded, with respect to these articles, in the same ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... acquiring "merit" by performing some "good" deed, such as bestowing alms upon the wandering religious mendicant; making contributions to the temples, etc., as well as performing the acts of ordinary good will toward men; and who are as equally anxious to avoid acquiring "demerit" from the lack of proper observances, and the performance of improper actions. While the general effect of this may be in the direction of holding the ignorant masses in the ethical road most conducive to the public weal, it also ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... these lines in the death cell, and the death-watch is set on me. Night and day is this death-watch on me, and its paradoxical function is to see that I do not die. I must be kept alive for the hanging, or else will the public be cheated, the law blackened, and a mark of demerit placed against the time-serving warden who runs this prison and one of whose duties is to see that his condemned ones are duly and properly hanged. Often I marvel at the strange way some men ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... was struck off and his quarters cast to the dogs. On whose soul God have mercy! Amen. In very deed, I think he deserved a better fate. Secure am I, that many men be hung on gallows which might safely be left to die abed, and many more die abed that richly demerit the gallows. This world is verily a-crooked: I reckon it shall be smoothed out and set straight one day. There be that say that day shall last a thousand years; and soothly, taking into account all the work to be done ere the eve droppeth, it were ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... God, for Damascene says (De Fide Orth. ii, 30): "It must be borne in mind that God foreknows but does not predetermine everything, since He foreknows all that is in us, but does not predetermine it all." But human merit and demerit are in us, forasmuch as we are the masters of our own acts by free will. All that pertains therefore to merit or demerit is not predestined by God; and thus man's predestination ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... not wise in all his ways. And should we not endeavour, as much as is possible, (where we are not attached by natural ties,) to like and dislike as reason bids us, and according to the merit or demerit of the object? If love, as it is called, is allowed to be an excuse for our most unreasonable follies, and to lay level all the fences that a careful education has surrounded us by, what is meant by the doctrine of subduing our passions?—But, O my dearest ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... progress of fortune is rapid. Such is the case when, either on merit or demerit, great patronage is bestowed. Henry's violin had often charmed, to a welcome forgetfulness of his insignificance, an effeminate lord; or warmed with ideas of honour the head of a duke, whose heart could never be taught to feel its manly glow. Princes had flown to the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... in her life, was very circumspect during recitations that week. She felt that Gee Gee was watching for a chance to demerit her, and the girl did not intend to give the teacher occasion for ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... Dunlop, showing how fresh was still the wound within. "When I skulk into a corner lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim, 'What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some previous state of existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the keys of riches in his puny fist, and I am kicked into the world, the sport of folly, or the victim of pride?... Often as I (p. 090) have glided ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... nations, the kings and priests, found in this a new instrument of domination by the privilege which they reserved to themselves of distributing the favors and punishments of the great judge, according to the merit or demerit of actions, which they took care to characterize as best ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... answered the question, according to his own knowledge and judgment. Ye should also answer it as ye think proper. Knowing the rules of morality, and having attended an assembly, he that doth not answer a query that is put, incurreth half the demerit that attacheth to a lie. He, on the other hand, who, knowing the rules of morality and having joined an assembly answereth falsely, assuredly incurreth the sin of a lie. The learned quote as an example in this connection ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... tell you, sir," replied Booth, "that will always be the case where faith is sincere, as I assure you mine is. Indeed, I never was a rash disbeliever; my chief doubt was founded on this— that, as men appeared to me to act entirely from their passions, their actions could have neither merit nor demerit." "A very worthy conclusion truly!" cries the doctor; "but if men act, as I believe they do, from their passions, it would be fair to conclude that religion to be true which applies immediately to the strongest of these passions, hope and fear; chusing ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... scheme of Mr. Flood's; but by taking charge of it himself, Lord Temple deprived it of the mischievous prestige it might have acquired under such dangerous auspices. The Bill, however, was not Mr. Flood's. Whatever merit, or demerit attaches to it, belongs exclusively to Lord Temple. Lord Northington, overlooking the fact that this Bill was simply a confirmation of the settlement of 1782, and that it really granted nothing new, endeavoured ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... different creature from the Englishman, the assumption is not likely to provoke dispute. No one will deny us the prominence of our cheek-bones, and our pride in the same. How far the difference extends, whether it involves merit or demerit, are questions not now sought to be settled. Nor is it important to discover how the difference arose; how far chiller climate and sourer soil, centuries of unequal yet not inglorious conflict, a separate race of kings, a body of separate traditions, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... government looked strong and imposing, and seemed to be secure against the assaults of its enemies, yet it was far from being as compact and powerful as it appeared to the outward observer. In the first place, it had the demerit of being founded solely on a negative, and upon opposition to a single line of policy. The reason why these men were assembled together in council as a government was that they were opposed to confederation, and, this question having been disposed of, they were free to differ upon ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... Compilers there are almost infinite degrees of merit and demerit: echoes of echoes reverberating echoes in endless succession; compilations of all degrees of worth and worthlessness. But, as will be shown hereafter, even in this lower sphere the worth of the work is strictly proportional ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... connexions, his easy circumstances, his popularity with the upper classes, as well as his testy temper and malicious disposition, all tended to rouse against him, while he lived, a personal as well as public hostility, altogether irrespective of the mere merit or demerit of his poetry. "We cannot bear a Papist to be our principal bard," said one class. "No Tory for our translator of Homer," cried the zealous Whigs, "Poets should be poor, and Pope is independent," growled Grub Street. ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... impossibilities, with which we are beset whenever we attempt to take to ourselves the functions of the Eternal Judge (except in reference to ourselves where judgment is committed to us), and to form any accurate idea of relative merit and demerit, good and evil, in actions. The shades of the rainbow are not so nice, and the sands of the sea-shore are not such a multitude, as are all the subtle, shifting, blending forms of thought and of circumstances that go to determine the character of us and ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... does not employ this idea of liberty, nor any other, to show that man is a responsible being. This is not at all strange; the wonder is, that after having demonstrated that "the prejudice of men concerning good and evil, merit and demerit, praise and blame, order and confusion, beauty and deformity," are nothing but dreams, he should have felt bound to defend the position, that we may be justly punished for our offences by the Supreme Ruler of the ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... legislative powers do not develope themselves, nor appear to act, till the reasoning powers of the person begin to expand. Then, and then only does the pupil of Nature, who has not had the benefit of previous moral instruction, begin to decide on the merit or demerit of actions. Infants, and children who are left without instruction, appear to have no distinct perception that certain actions are right, and others wrong. In infancy, we frequently perceive the most rebellious ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... for the real opening of the term on Monday. But we're all supposed to arrive in time to attend service Sunday morning. Mrs. Tellingham is very strict about that. Those who arrive after that have a demerit to work off at ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... are clearly conscious of merit or demerit, of self-approval or self-condemnation, in consequence of our actions. If our wills were acted upon by a force beyond our control, we might congratulate or pity ourselves, but we could not praise or blame ourselves, for what we ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... a visit to Mistress Lucy immediately on reaching port. She took me very severely to task for leaving the port without a word of farewell, and seemed to find it a demerit in me that I had returned without a wound, praising Dick Cludde very warmly for the part he had taken in the fight. I answered with some heat that if I was not wounded 'twas from no shirking of duty, and I would have desired nothing better than that we should board one of the French ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... man deliberately chooses evil as evil. And Plato is, at the same time, careful to guard the doctrine from misconception. He readily grants that acts of wrong are distinguished as voluntary and involuntary, without which there could be neither merit nor demerit, reward nor punishment.[670] But still he insists that no man chooses evil in and by itself. He may choose it voluntarily as a means, but he does not choose it as an end. Every volition, by its essential nature, pursues, at least, an apparent ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... preposition. Belief is a passion, or involuntary operation of the mind, and, like other passions, its intensity is precisely proportionate to the degrees of excitement. Volition is essential to merit or demerit. But the Christian religion attaches the highest possible degrees of merit and demerit to that which is worthy of neither, and which is totally unconnected with the peculiar faculty of the mind, whose presence ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... consciousness, it can be no more concerned in than if they had never been done: and to receive pleasure or pain, i.e. reward or punishment, on the account of any such action, is all one as to be made happy or miserable in its first being, without any demerit at all. For, supposing a MAN punished now for what he had done in another life, whereof he could be made to have no consciousness at all, what difference is there between that punishment and being CREATED miserable? And therefore, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... his Ratnaprabha on S'a@nkara's bha@sya, II. ii. 19, explains "bhava" as that from which anything becomes, as merit and demerit (dharmadi). See also Vibhanga, p. 137 and Warren's Buddhism in Translations, p. 201. Mr Aung says in Abhidhammatthasa@ngaha, p. 189, that bhavo includes kammabhavo (the active side of an existence) and upapattibhavo (the passive side). And the commentators ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... may be admitted at once that when the term substitute is interpreted without reference to this basis of fact it lends itself very easily to misconstruction. It falls in with, if it does not suggest, the idea of a transference of merit and demerit, the sin of the world being carried over to Christ's account, and the merit of Christ to the world's account, as if the reconciliation of God and man, or the forgiveness of sins and the regeneration of souls, could be explained without the use of higher categories than are employed in bookkeeping. ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... came down with a crash. "After last month's fine production record, you think four minutes doesn't matter, eh? Think just because you're a vice president it's all right to mosey in here whenever you feel like it." He glowered. "Well, this is three times this month you've been late, Towne. That's a demerit for each time, and ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... common than in China, the system of the "Holy Path" is yet widely practised in Japan. Elaborate tables are drawn up, containing a list of all good and bad actions it is possible to perform, with the numbers added which each counts on the side of merit or demerit. The numbers range from one to a hundred, or even more; and the tables afford an insight into the relative importance in which all kinds of actions present themselves to the Oriental mind. He who would ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... Mabinogion, deals with Arthur's struggle against the wild-boar king Twrch Trwyth, who with his seven cubs holds in check all the heroes of the Round Table. The adventures of the three hundred ravens of Kerverhenn similarly form the subject of the Dream of Rhonabwy. The idea of moral merit and demerit is almost wholly absent from all these compositions. There are wicked beings who insult ladies, who tyrannise over their neighbours, who only find pleasure in evil because such is their nature; but it does not appear that they incur wrath on that account. Arthur's ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... "Take a demerit for that, and stay after school," I told him. "I could kind of read in that man's face, that there is going to be some fun ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... executive has carried his fatherly care even beyond this; he has actually suggested the terms of a bargain by which he thinks the difficulty can be settled, which, in addition to the gross assumption of having a voice in a matter that in no manner belongs to him, has the palpable demerit of recommending a pecuniary compromise that is flagrantly wrong as a ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... wrought, nerve -centered body of the universe could suffer of physical pain and anguish; God did not make Him to be sin and treat Him as the blackest and most repulsive thing in existence; He did not lay upon Him the weight and demerit of a world's guilt that He might suffer in His innocence, His purity and innate sinlessness on behalf of the vilest outcast this side of Gehenna, the lake of fire, just that He might keep us from lying, cheating, swearing, getting drunk, ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... past, still kept them in a state of anxiety. Day having appeared, the soldiers were summoned by sound of trumpet to attend the tribunes in assembly, when recompence was to be made both to merit and to demerit; Manlius was first of all commended for his bravery and presented with gifts, not only by the military tribunes, but with the consent of the soldiers, for they all carried to his house, which was in the citadel, a contribution of half a pound of corn and half a pint of wine: a matter trifling in ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... intentions on coming into the port, and finding our two nations to be at war: you cannot know what alteration a knowledge of the war might have made in my sentiments. We do indeed judge much of the merit or demerit of an action by the intention with which it is performed; but in all cases there must be an action performed to constitute any certain merit or demerit amongst men. Now in my case there appears to have been intention only; and even this intention I have before shown to be consistent with ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... because the theologian considers human acts according as they are found to be good or evil, better or worse: and this diversity depends on circumstances, as we shall see further on (Q. 18, AA. 10, 11; Q. 73, A. 7). Thirdly, because the theologian considers human acts under the aspect of merit and demerit, which is proper to human acts; and for this it is requisite that they be voluntary. Now a human act is deemed to be voluntary or involuntary, according to knowledge or ignorance of circumstances, as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... 2: Merit and demerit belong to the state of a wayfarer, wherefore good is meritorious in them, while evil is demeritorious. In the blessed, on the other hand, good is not meritorious, but is part of their blissful reward, and, in like manner, in the damned, evil is not demeritorious, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... distracting the many have put into their work some fineness which commends it also to the few. It is only in theory that there is a fixed boundary between works of art and the works which Philistines enjoy. In practice, merit and demerit exist side by side; works crude in conception reveal a hundred finenesses, and works fine in conception reveal crudenesses of execution. And just as there are authors who mingle good and bad in their books, ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... and arrange the terms upon which that monitor will consent to the performance of the rest of the dance. For the dance proper—or improper—is now about to begin. If the first part seemed somewhat tropical, comparison with what follows will acquit it of that demerit. The combinations of the dance are infinitely varied, and so long as willing witnesses remain—which, in simple justice to manly fortitude it should be added, is a good while—so long will the "Chon Nookee" present a new and unexpected phase, but it is thought expedient that no more of them be ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... brought him into the society of every rank and condition of man. He is himself the hero of his books: he is wild Tom Jones, he is wild Captain Booth, less wild, I am glad to think, than his predecessor, at least heartily conscious of demerit, and anxious to amend. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... abnegation, abstract *Ad to adduce, adjacent, affect, accede *Ante before antediluvian, anteroom *Bi two biped, bicycle *Circum around circumambient, circumference *Cum, com, with, together combine, consort, coadjutor con, co *Contra against contradict, contrast *De from, negative deplete, decry, demerit, declaim down, intensive *Di, dis asunder, away from, divert, disbelief negative *E, ex from, out of evict, excavate *Extra beyond extraordinary, extravagant *In in, into, not innate, instil, insignificant *Inter among, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... exemption not only from all manner of constraint or compulsion but also from all necessity and this command over my own actions that render me inexcusable when I will evil, and praiseworthy when I will good; in this lies merit and demerit, praise and blame; it is this that makes either punishment or reward just; it is upon this consideration that men exhort, rebuke, threaten, and promise. This is the foundation of all policy, instruction, and rules of morality. The upshot of the merit and demerit of ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... that by subjecting us to a dependence on hours, it diverted our attention from those places where we might have spent half a day to advantage, and familiarized us only with one branch of knowledge,—the merit and demerit of most of the inns on the roads, whose characters I shall not fail to give as we found them. Homely as this species of information may be, I have often regretted the want of it beforehand; and concluding that others may be of the same opinion, I shall therefore afford it as far as I am able: premising, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... chance, you are addicted, let us say, in the quieter hours of winter, to writing of any kind—and for your joy, I pray that this be so, whether this writing be in massive volumes, or obscure and unpublished beyond its demerit—if such has been your addiction, you have found, doubtless, that your case lies much like the fat woman's; that it is the show you give before the door that must determine what numbers go within—that, to be plain with you, much thought must be given to the taking of your title. ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... my class to write some friends of the school for scholarships (this being the request of the friends) and of the two persons that received favorable answers, I was one. During the whole time I was in school I did not receive one demerit, or a black mark. Our teachers seemed perfect, and it was a pleasure for me to ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... surely I have great reason, that I shall be too unworthy to hold the affections of so dear a gentleman!—God teach me humility, and to know my own demerit! And this will be, next to his grace, my surest guard, in the state of life to which, though most unworthy, I am going to be exalted. And don't cease your prayers for me, my dear parents; for, perhaps, this new ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... produce the intended effect, to an extent desired by the disaffected few. The object contemplated is, to produce an excitement that will prevent me going to England, and induce the Conference to retrace its steps. The merit or demerit of the measure has been mainly ascribed to me; and on its result, should I cross the Atlantic, my standing, in a great measure, depends. If our proposals should meet with a conciliatory reception, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... or a month. And they were lean men, battle-scarred and fierce of eye, some with armless sleeves, some with stiff legs, some twisted with rheumatism. All spoke French, and spat whenever they saw the perfidious flag of old England. This was not marked against them as a demerit, for the War of 1812 was yet smoking here and there along the Great Lakes. Suddenly, they would up and away, and the manor would reassume its repellent aloofness. Each time they returned their number was diminished. Old age had succeeded war as a harvester. In 1822, the mysterious ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... recognition of his own sinfulness. He had no new facts; but new meaning and vitality were given to the facts that had long been familiar to him. The first result of this was a new conviction of his own hollowness and evil; and then, side by side with that sense of demerit and sin, came this other trembling apprehension of personal consequences. And so, not thinking so much about the sin as about the punishment that he thought must necessarily come when the holy and the impure ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... doubtless both educational and charitable, or at least ought to be, using these words in their ordinary application. It is not a question of merit or demerit on the part of the unfortunates or their families. It is not a question whether they are entitled to an education as much as normal children. So far as there is any real issue, it is one of classification ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... have given me then?" "I'd have called you," said Sir William boldly, "a disreputable drunken loafer who never did an honest day's work in his life." Which had the merit of truth, and, he thought, the demerit of rashness. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shall not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." This denunciation included an exposure not only to temporal, but to eternal death, as might be shown from the nature and demerit of sin, the means which were afterwards employed to destroy its effects in the work of Christ, the repeated declarations of Scripture, and the peculiar energy of the original expression; it is literally, "Dying, thou shalt ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... they may through industry either supplant or explode) will be rendered an uneasy struggle, and sometimes almost a curse, by the envy of those who deny approval while blind to success, and the affected disdain of those who exaggerate demerit. Yet these obstacles warm the spirit of honest ambition, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... evil-doing, evil courses; wrongdoing; wickedness, viciousness &c adj.; iniquity, peccability^, demerit; sin, Adam^; old Adam^, offending Adam^. immorality, impropriety, indecorum, scandal, laxity, looseness of morals; enphagy^, dophagy^, exophagy^; want of principle, want of ballast; obliquity, backsliding, infamy, demoralization, pravity^, depravity, pollution; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... knowing all the while that his representation was contrary to the recorded facts of history. To say so much only of this book would be not to attribute to it a positive merit, but only to acquit it of damning demerit. But what we affirm is that Mr. Alger has fairly looked his facts in the face, and come to some understanding with himself about them. When he speaks, therefore, it is about facts, about realities, not merely about words; and what he offers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... she had that air of fashion, that look of being able to look down the unfashionable, which was so much in the eyes of Sir Henry; though in those of George Bertram it had been almost a demerit. With Caroline, as with many women, this was an appearance rather than a reality. She had not moved much among high people; she had not taught herself to despise those of her own class, the women of Littlebath, the Todds and the Adela Gauntlets; but she looked as though she would be able to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... service. It is true that this partial independence of the Government whom they served rather in the character of volunteers, than of conscripts, was in a great measure fatal to their discipline; but in the peculiar warfare of the country, absence of discipline was rather an advantage than a demerit, since when checked, or thrown into confusion, they looked not for a remedy in the resumption of order, but in the exercise each of his own individual exertions, facilitated as he was by his general knowledge of localities, and his confidence in his ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Semite and the Big Trees, but Hank Monk and his adventure with Horace Greeley. [And what makes that worn anecdote the more aggravating, is, that the adventure it celebrates never occurred. If it were a good anecdote, that seeming demerit would be its chiefest virtue, for creative power belongs to greatness; but what ought to be done to a man who would wantonly contrive so flat a one as this? If I were to suggest what ought to be done to him, I should be called extravagant—but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of the state as of no estimation, they are, at best, indifferent about it. They see no merit in the good, and no fault in the vicious management of public affairs; they rather rejoice in the latter, as more propitious to revolution. They see no merit or demerit in any man, or any action, or any political principle, any further than as they may forward or retard their design of change; they therefore take up, one day, the most violent and stretched prerogative, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Messieurs!' cries M. Siron, bearing through the court the first tureen of soup. And immediately the company begins to settle down about the long tables in the dining-room, framed all round with sketches of all degrees of merit and demerit. There's the big picture of the huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar between his legs, and his legs—well, his legs in stockings. And here is the little picture of a raw mutton-chop, in which Such-a-one knocked a hole last summer with no worse a missile than ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that British commerce had received in war during the memory of men then living, and "a general inclination prevailed to lay the blame upon some individual, who might be punished according to the magnitude of the object, rather than in proportion to his demerit."[90] ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... ecclesiastical and secular tribunals would have condemned him with one voice. And, mark the style in which they would have branded the immoral paradox! "Conscience,"—they would have cried,—"conscience, man's chief glory, was given to him exclusively; the notion of justice and injustice, of merit and demerit, is his noble privilege; to man, alone,—the lord of creation,—belongs the sublime power to resist his worldly propensities, to choose between good and evil, and to bring himself more and more into the resemblance of God through liberty and justice.... ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... rule of godliness. I took him not for love but fright; He did but ask a dreadful right. In this was love, that he loved me The first, who was mere poverty. All that I know of love he taught; And love is all I know of aught. My merit is so small by his, That my demerit is my bliss. My life is hid with him in Christ, Never therefrom to be enticed; And in his strength have I such rest As when the baby on my breast Finds what it knows not how to seek, And, very happy, very weak, Lies, only ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... establishing the English Church. False word reached the Privy Council that immorality was rife in the colony owing to a lack of religious instruction, and that Catholics were preferred in its offices. This movement succeeded, in spite of its intrinsic demerit, by passing itself off as part of the rising in favor of William ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... safe to say of this young man that he readily diagnosed a spiritual atmosphere, but this was the less his demerit, since everything from his cradle up had conspired to keep the spiritual thermometer of his surroundings at 60 in the shade. And the fact that his own spiritual thermometer had now run up so that it threatened to burst the bulb, rendered him less likely than ever to see what was happening ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... raree-show—have not realised the power of the Spirit of Antiquity, and the power of the sentiment about him—that sentiment which gives birth to the great human dream about hereditary merit and demerit upon which society—royalist or republican—is built. What is the use of telling us that even in Grecian annals there is no kind of heroism recorded which you cannot match in the histories of the United States and Canada? What is the ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... remain unnoticed. He marked well all absentees from the Court, found out the reason of their absence, and never lost an opportunity of acting towards them as the occasion might seem to justify. With some of the courtiers (the most distinguished), it was a demerit not to make the Court their ordinary abode; with others 'twas a fault to come but rarely; for those who never or scarcely ever came it was certain disgrace. When their names were in any way mentioned, "I do not know them," the King would reply haughtily. Those who presented themselves but seldom ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... sole judge of the merit for which a pension is to be given. We have a right, undoubtedly, to canvass this, as we have to canvass every act of government. But there is a material difference between an office to be reformed and a pension taken away for demerit. In the former case, no charge is implied against the holder; in the latter, his character is slurred, as well as his lawful emolument affected. The former process is against the thing; the second, against the person. The pensioner certainly, if he pleases, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... making a wry face at the thought, whether she intended to record his actions in a book, giving him marks of merit or demerit according as the whim struck her? In that case she had probably already placed a black mark against him, ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... death, the spirit is supposed to visit the different temples, going, as it were, from official court to official court receiving judgment, and cards of merit or demerit to take with it, for the deeds done in the body. On the third day it returns to say farewell to the home, and then leaves for its long journey, and all this paper furniture ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... of merit and demerit, of praise and blame, and more especially (but this will shock Mr. Wells) of salvation and damnation—and nothing can be easier than to pay to the works of the Veiled Being the meed of an illimitable wonder. When we think of the roaring vortices ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... diabolical, inasmuch as they are not only meant to impede the measures of that government generally, but more especially, as a great means toward the accomplishment of it, to destroy the confidence which it is necessary for the people to place, until they have unequivocal proof of demerit, in their public servants. In this light I consider myself whilst I am an occupant of office; and if they were to go further and call me their slave during this period, I would ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... crimes or faults, by remaining silent in regard to their vices. This would be suffering our compassion to degenerate into weakness. It would in fact be hardness of heart. It would betray a spirit of indifference to their dearest interest, as by our silence, they might remain in blindness to the demerit of their deeds, and hurry on to the ruin of their reputation, and consequently, of their earthly happiness. True tenderness of heart makes us watchful over the conduct of those we love, and with whom we are connected in life— moves us to lay naked before them their faults, so that ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... winneth the happier age Which by demerit halteth short of end; Yet must this Law of Love reign King of all Before ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... eagerness with which they have always exerted themselves, devoting all their energies to the sole service of God and your Majesty. They have ceased to exercise their duties in-these posts—the best and chiefest of the kingdom—not through any demerit, but through the suppression of the Audiencia. We trust that your Majesty will look favorably upon them and upon your other servants who have served you in this royal Audiencia; and that you will reward them and promote them as we desire. May God preserve the Catholic person of your ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... Should I compare ourselves with them, I should injure the name of Roman. I should think also, conscript fathers, that in deliberating on such a measure, it ought also to be considered, (if you are disposed to be over severe, which you cannot do from any demerit of ours,) to what sort of enemy you would abandon us. Is it to Pyrrhus, for instance, who treated us, when his prisoners, like guests; or to a barbarian and Carthaginian, of whom it is difficult to determine whether his rapacity or cruelty be the greater? If you were to see the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... contributed by Mr. Runciman to the pages of The Family Herald. In the superfine circles of the Sniffy, this fact is sufficient to condemn them unread. For of all fools the most incorrigible is surely the conventional critic who judges literary wares not by their intrinsic merit or demerit, but by the periodical in which they first saw the light. The same author may write in the same day two articles, putting his best work and thought into each, but if he sends one to The Saturday Review and the other to ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... alone can know my thoughts and judge the degree of merit or of demerit to be attached ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a great officer broke, a change made in the court or the ministry, and this under the most just and gracious Princess that ever reigned, I must naturally conclude it is done upon prudent considerations, and for some great demerit in the sufferers. But then; is not the punishment sufficient? Is it generous or charitable to trample on the unfortunate, and expose their faults to the world in the strongest colours? And would it not suit better with magnanimity ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... his Majesty's expense, and punished for their audacity with stripes, stocking, or incarceration, according to their demerits—that is to say, I suppose, according to the degree of their poverty, for I see no other demerit specified." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... demerit of the individual had comparatively little to do with the regards which the other members of the family cherished towards him. Now it goes far towards a total determination of those regards. Multitudes of the nearest relatives are utterly indifferent ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... poor, young and old, all regarded me with derision. Torella came not near me. No wonder that my second father should expect a son's deference from me in waiting first on him. But, galled and stung by a sense of my follies and demerit, I strove to throw the blame on others. We kept nightly orgies in Palazzo Carega. To sleepless, riotous nights, followed listless, supine mornings. At the Ave Maria we showed our dainty persons in the streets, scoffing at the sober citizens, casting insolent glances on the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... he could thank her for his share of the blessing that her passion for motherly care was to all the house. It was pathetic, and he used sometimes to forecast her self-devotion with a tender indignation, which included a due sense of his own present demerit. He was not reconciled to the sacrifice because it seemed the happiness, or at least the will, of the nature which made it. All the same it seemed a waste, in its relation to the man she was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of one's self which must ever be a sign of self-conscious demerit," said the young girl lightly, "I may say that I am not generally good at Johnsonese; but it may relieve your mind to know that had you kept silence one instant longer, I should have taken the risk of lowering your opinion of my taste, provided, of course, that you ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... November 30, 1654, are to transplant themselves into Connaught; or by entertaining them as tenants on his lands, or as servants under him, he shall be punished by the articles of war as negligent of his duty, according to the demerit of ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... hour, was a legacy made over to them by England. On that matter of traveling they have not been contented with the old habits left to them, but have gone ahead and made railroads. In creating those railways the merit is due to them; and so also is the demerit of maintaining those slaves. ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... words indicate much—that the good man was "always good." It will be seen that, when he went to West Point, he never received a demerit. The good boy was the good young officer, and became, in due time, ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... by M. Peterson, of Bavaria, who maintained that cases required treatment according to the degree of demerit shown on the prisoner's trial, and therefore, that instead of laying down one principle, the right course was to leave the judges to decide what should be done in ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... most superstitious beliefs of ancient pagans. Let us look well at those teachings. According to them, God is the author of evil: he issues forth his decrees of election or reprobation, irrespective of merit or demerit; inflicting eternal torments on innumerable souls which never could have been saved, and for whom the Son of God did not die. What any rational being must consider as the most revolting cruelty and injustice, these men called acts of pure justice executed ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... very severe one, to be sure, but one they were not likely to forget, for each word that they had misspelled was written upon a good-sized piece of paper and pinned upon their breasts "as a reward of demerit," Miss Preston told them, and, although it was all done in fun and joked and laughed over at the time, each girl knew that those words must be thoroughly committed to memory before the Wednesday spelling match began its lively session, or ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... she replied, 'you were never more mistaken in your life. I find you charming, and you may very well have lighted on a fairy godmother. I am not one of those who are given to change their opinions, and short of substantial demerit, those who have once gained my favour continue to enjoy it; but I have a singular swiftness of decision, read my fellow men and women with a glance, and have acted throughout life on first impressions. Yours, as I tell you, has been favourable; and if, as I ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... off fat—nor do I doubt the efficacy of exercise and its accompaniments in the way of sweating and baths and all that; but when a person has a living to make these methods are useless, not through any demerit of their own but because the man who is fat hasn't the time or opportunity and, more than all, soon fails in the inclination ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... such individuality. Viewed, however, in the less profound way, he is not unwilling to adopt the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul through various forms, admitting that there may accumulate upon it the effect of all those influences, whether of merit or demerit, of good or of evil, to which it has been exposed. The vital flame is handed down from one generation to another, it is communicated from one animated form to another. He thinks it may carry with it in these movements the modifications which may have ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... was undisturbed by a Carthaginian war, so it was evident that some of the states remained quiet more from fear, arising from a consciousness of demerit, than from sincere attachment. The most remarkable of them, both for their greatness and guilt, were Illiturgi and Castulo. Castulo had been in alliance with the Romans when in prosperity, but had revolted to the Carthaginians after the destruction ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... a bathing-towel or a light great-coat. Each of them is in an oratorical attitude, which has all the disadvantage of being affected without even any of the advantages of being theatrical. Let no one suppose that such abortions arise merely from technical demerit. In every line of those leaden dolls is expressed the fact that they were not set up with any heat of natural enthusiasm for beauty or dignity. They were set up mechanically, because it would seem indecorous or stingy if they were ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... radiant white Light of lights, known to the knowers of the Self."[35] "When the seer sees the golden-coloured Creator, the Lord, the Spirit, whose womb is Brahman, then, having thrown away merit and demerit, stainless, the wise ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... Polydore Virgil, he hath written either nothing or very little concerning them; and that so little, so false and misbeseeming the ingenuitie of an historian, that he seemeth to have aimed at no other end than, by bitter invectives against Henry VIII., and Cardinal Wolsey, to demerit the favour of Queen Mary," &c., Godwyn's translation of the Annales of England; edit. 1630, author's Preface. "It is also remarkable that Polydore Virgil's and Bishop Joscelin's edition of Gildas's epistle differ so materially that the author of it hardly seems to ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... exists to punish bad ones, or even to he angry with those who commit them: that nothing ought to be imputed to them; that the laws would he unjust if they should decree punishment for necessary actions; in short, that under this system man could neither have merit nor demerit. In reply, it may he argued, that, to impute an action to any one, is to attribute that action to him; to acknowledge him for the author: thus, when even an action was supposed to be the effect of an agent, and that agent necessity, the imputation would lie: the merit or demerit, that ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... answered: "The only person in this country that owns anything is the King; in the service of his people he afflicts himself with that burden. All property, of whatsoever kind, is his, to do with as he will. He divides it among his subjects in the ratio of their demerit, as determined by the waguks—local officers—whose duty it is to know personally every one in their jurisdiction. To the most desperate and irreclaimable criminals is allotted the greatest wealth, which is taken from them, little by little, as they show ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... Slight ye not the soul For the frame's demerit; Oft a shattered bowl Holds a mighty spirit: Never search a breast By thy ruby's glances; Pomp's a puppet guest, Danced ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... appreciation to merit and demerit, and deal out to each its sure reward or punishment. In these days, reward does not attend upon merit, nor punishment upon crime. Ye high functionaries who have charge of public affairs, let it be your task to make clear ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... gorgeous officer, in full fig. "Major McDowell!" somebody whispered, as we presented arms. He is a General, or perhaps a Field Marshal, now. Promotions come with a hop, skip, and jump, in these times, when demerit resigns and merit stands ready ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... brief periods of high spiritual tension that a theology so merciless can sustain itself. No one with a conscience in him will think of claiming any merit for himself. But we know also that there are degrees of demerit, and, theory or no theory, we fall back on the first verse of the English Liturgy, as containing a ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... the divine perfections, and that a man who does not love the law does not love the gospel; for the law, as well as the gospel, is a mirror reflecting the true character of God. This peril leads to another, that of underrating the evil of sin, the extent of it, the demerit of it. In proportion to the rightfulness of the commandment is the wrongfulness ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... trace this happy condition to its sources. He begins with a negation. The antecedent cause of our salvation and calling was not our works; we were not treated according to our works; not after the measure, the proportion, the merit or demerit of our works: these might have brought punishment, but could never have procured for us blessings so great and undeserved. The real cause was the purpose of God and his grace given in Christ before the ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... knew too well the precious qualities of sleep to allow that of their shipmates to be causelessly disturbed by the nervous apprehensions of one who carried with him an everlasting stimulant to fear in the consciousness of demerit. The night passed away undisturbed, therefore, nor was the order of the regular watch broken until the look-outs in the wreck, agreeably to their orders, awoke Captain Truck ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... their due, will be refused the honours they may justly claim?—I am very much loth to offend you; yet I cannot help speaking of your relations, as well as of others, as I think they deserve. Praise or dispraise, is the reward or punishment which the world confers or inflicts on merit or demerit; and, for my part, I neither can nor will confound them in the application. I despise them all, but your mother: indeed I do: and as for her—but I will spare the good lady for your sake—and one argument, indeed, I think may be pleaded in her favour, in the present contention—she ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... rabbits, swore That he had this demerit— Give him an inch of warren, he Would take ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Committee conceive, in a great measure arisen from dark cabals, and secret suggestions to persons in power, without a regular public inquiry into the good or evil tendency of any measure, or into the merit or demerit of any person intrusted ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... we have omitted to copy their caution also, which makes a judge removable on the address of both legislative Houses. That there should be public functionaries independent of the nation, whatever may be their demerit, is a solecism in a republic, of the first order of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... severity on the part of Great Britain. That it increased the cost of the war both in lives and in treasure to the British nation is obvious. But this is a consideration which does not affect any estimate of the merit or demerit displayed by the British Army in the field that may be formed either by British or foreign critics. In order to prove competency it is not necessary to show that no single mistake was made or that nothing that was done might ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... ordered down to Fort Coulonge to take Mr. S.'s place for the summer. He returned from Montreal about the end of August, and I was much gratified to learn from him that I had been again appointed to the charge of the Chats, so that all the merit or demerit of good or bad management would now be entirely my own. A few days after, a middle-sized canoe arrived, manned by three Canadians, with whom I embarked for the scene of my first essay ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... mere individual, and perhaps unfortunate, idiosyncrasy as a matter of pride. I happen to be devoted to Macbeth, whereas I very seldom read Hamlet (though I like parts of it). Now I am humbly and sincerely conscious that this is a demerit in me and not in Hamlet; and yet it would not do me any good to pretend that I like Hamlet as much as Macbeth when, as a matter of fact, I don't. I am very fond of simple epics and of ballad poetry, from the Nibelungenlied and the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... a necessary part of the ultimate redressing of all injustice and resolution of all the discords of life that the hope of it should prove true in the individual as it will certainly prove true in the universe. For we are unable to weigh individual merit or demerit, and cannot assert for certain that the balance of justice is not maintained even in this present life. But nevertheless the hope that it must and will be so is inextinguishable, and Faith in an Eternal Law of Morals is ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... (which, however, I did not think it worth while to mention) and I did not feel justified in criticising him in public. Besides, what I knew of him was excellent, and entirely apart from the literary merit or demerit of his work. The others, however, were within their right when they censured or praised him, and they did both. Farrar, in particular, surprised me by the violence of his attacks, while Miss Trevor took up the Celebrity's defence with equal ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... At Middlebury College "a class-book is kept by each instructor, in which the character of each student's recitation is noted by numbers, and all absences from college exercises are minuted. Demerit for absences and other irregularities is also marked in like manner, and made the basis of discipline. At the close of each term, the average of these marks is recorded, and, when desired, communicated to parents and guardians." This book ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... to encroach, when once it has passed its limits) coming to confine the juries, case after case, to the corporeal fact, and to that alone, and excluding the intention of mind, the only source of merit and demerit, of reward or punishment, juries become a dead ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... by men of a certain school it would be deemed no demerit, even though they should never have condescended to look into any system of Aristotelian logic. It is enough for these gentlemen that they are experimentalists! Let it not, however, be supposed that they make more ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... those in "Evelina," or "Cecilia," or in the "Diary" itself; the alternate pathos and satire of the book keep our attention ever on the alert. That it failed to win the suffrages of the public was certainly due to no demerit in the work. Many causes may have conspired against it. The public taste had long been debauched by novels of that nightmare school in which Mrs Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis were the leaders. Moreover, in the very year in which ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay |
