Alexander Pope Merit Quotations

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul

The good must merit God's peculiar care; But who but God can tell us who they are?

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.

Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.

Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe, Are lost on hearers that our merits know.

Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue

Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.