L’étroitesse de notre territoire ainsi que notre histoire mouvementée nous ont rendus pleinement conscients de notre dépendance à l’égard de tous ceux qui nous entourent. Je pense que cette prise de conscience a le mérite de nous préserver de l’arrogance.
Christmas message http://www.monarchie.lu/fr/actualites/discours/2014/12/discours-noel-lu/index.html (25 December 2015)
Luxembourg
“Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.”
I.332 http://books.google.com/books?id=Nl-vaAdJD3MC&pg=PA139&dq=:%22Arrogance+on+the+part+of+the+meritorious+is+even+more+offensive+to+us%22&hl=en&ei=7HFTTKGJOcmhnQfSrsXJAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%3A%22Arrogance%20on%20the%20part%20of%20the%20meritorious%20is%20even%20more%20offensive%20to%20us%22&f=false
Human, All Too Human (1878)
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Friedrich Nietzsche 655
German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and cl… 1844–1900Related quotes
“There is merit without attainment, but no attainment without some merit.”
Il y a du mérite sans élévation, mais il n'y a point d'élévation sans quelque mérite.
Maxim 400.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“What is more arrogant than honesty?”
Source: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 15 “To the Ice” (p. 213)
No. 231 (24 November 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
Remarks on Intelligence Reform, at the Rose Garden http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040802-2.html, August 2, 2004
2000s, 2004
“More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.”
Memoirs of Napoleon (1829-1831)
“We can love an honest rogue, but what is more offensive than a false saint?”
To See the Dream, part 1 (1956)
“Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.”
Maximes et pensées (1805)
Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 4 (p. 44)