Top 440 Merely Quotes

The 1898 annexation of the Hawaiian Islands merely formally recognized what had long been American domination.

People are forgiving of v 1.0 of a product if it’s truly innovative and useful. Then you can get away with a lot. But if you’re merely marginally improving the status quo, then you better be rock solid.

Gone must be the days of only pointing fingers at others to fix what they may never fix. Our nation’s ills are not merely the result of corruption or racism, although these are evil. Our troubles can also be traced directly to ineffective Christians.

The march to our duty here, not merely to ourselves, but to our surroundings, must proceed. God wills it.

The different ness of races, moreover, is no evidence of superiority or of inferiority. This merely indicates that each race has certain gifts which the others do not possess.

Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely like exercising authority usually lose it.

Impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or which we do not wish to happen.

The men in the steel industry who sacrificed their all were nor merely aiding their fellows at home but were adding strength to the cause of their comrades in all industry.

A Hindu is interested in the welfare of all: not merely humans, but all living beings.

Blacks who lack a proper killing rage are merely victims.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

The universe is neither friendly nor hostile. It is merely indifferent. This makes me ecstatic.

A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.

While the Tan Yan Kee foundation believes that it is merely scratching the surface relative to the gargantuan problems in the education sector, it envisions that one day it will be able to train more teachers and provide much-needed facilities that will transform schools into more conducive learning environments.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.

The employee is regarded by the employer merely in the light of his value as an operative. His productive capacity alone is taken into account.

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.

The implication is that this basic idea we have that we are controlled by our genes is false. It’s an idea that turns us into victims. I’m saying we are the creators of our situation. The genes are merely the blueprints. We are the contractors, and we can adjust those blueprints. And we can even rewrite them.

The phrase ‘perception is reality’ is overused generally. But perception can be reality in monetary policy. The bond market doesn’t act merely on what it sees. It acts on what it expects of the Fed or the government.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

In rating ease of description as very important, we are essentially asserting a belief in quantitative knowledge – a belief that most of the key questions in our world sooner or later demand answers to ‘by how much?’ rather than merely to ‘in which direction?’

I’m sometimes scared of everything that has happened to us. We didn’t think Desilu Productions would grow so big. We merely wanted to be together and have two children.

Being ‘at the mercy of legislative majorities’ is merely another way of describing the basic American plan: representative democracy.

Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.

In physics, to be in two places at the same time would be a miracle; in politics it seems not merely normal, but natural.

If the technical innovations of the Impressionists led merely to a more accurate representation of nature, it was perhaps of not much value in enlarging their powers of expression.

At least the Pilgrim Fathers used to shoot Indians: the Pilgrim Children merely punch time clocks.

Comedy films never die, all they need is a good script instead of merely relying on humour. That said, I would love to portray more characters like the one I play in ‘Perariyathavar.’

If Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t understand something, it’s not defeat. It’s not even something he has to accept. It’s merely a challenge he needs to engineer his way out of, and that includes human emotions and relationships.

Without question, Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler is my most recognizable partner and my favorite to work with over the years. We endured several things together that reach far beyond merely signing on and subsequently saying ‘good night everybody’ at the end of the show.

Most people who are really, enduringly interested in something eventually find that it’s important, too – and important to other people. Very few people can keep going their whole life doing something and feel like it’s merely personally fascinating.

I, therefore, O Caesar, do not publish this work, merely prefixing my name to a treatise which of right belongs to others, nor think of acquiring reputation by finding fault with the works of any one.

Manned spaceflight has lost its glamour – understandably so, because it hardly seems inspiring, 40 years after Apollo, for astronauts merely to circle the Earth in the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

People talk about the ’60s, but they were merely a mass production of what the ’50s had begun.

I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me.

These groups within a society can he distinguished according as to whether, like an army or an orchestra, they function as a single body; or whether they are united merely to defend their common interests and otherwise function as separate individuals.

I dislike the phrase ‘social media.’ ‘Social media’ is merely a way to describe new tools in an old and narrow paradigm where we measure success by how many people are reached.

Many good sayings are to be found in holy books, but merely reading them will not make one religious.

A government is not legitimate merely because it exists.

I wouldn’t describe that ‘position’ as ‘parasitic.’ I’d describe that experience as ‘edifying.’ I don’t merely write from a critical intellectual distance. I actually live around here.

The decision to use recognition as an on-the-spot bonus instead of merely pay increases is a fascinating one, because pay increases can create new mental anchors for how much the person feels happy earning, whereas the social recognition program is ongoing, unexpected, and harder to form a mental anchor around.

What a different world this would be if people would listen to those who know more and not merely try to get something from those who have more.

Poetry is not Irish or any other nationality; and when writers such as Messrs. Clarke, Farren and the late F. R. Higgins pursue Irishness as a poetic end, they are merely exploiting incidental local colour.

Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.

The freedom to fail is vital if you’re going to succeed. Most successful people fail from time to time, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success.

Too many sit at the banquet table of the gospel of Jesus Christ and merely nibble at the feast placed before them. They go through the motions – attending their meetings perhaps, glancing at scriptures, repeating familiar prayers – but their hearts are far away.

I believe in an evolving Constitution. A flexible Constitution leaves room for us to consider not merely how the world once was, but how it ought to be.

For all the farcical invoking of Blitz spirit, Brexit isn’t merely an absurdist experiment in English nationalist nostalgia – it is the most audacious example yet of a futuristic Russian nationalism that seeks to divide and rule Europe.

Americans are immensely popular in Paris; and this is not due solely to the fact that they spend lots of money there, for they spend just as much or more in London, and in the latter city they are merely tolerated because they do spend.

Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it’s the cyanide.

Leaders receive and give assignments. This is an important part of the necessary principle of delegating. No one appreciates a willing volunteer more than I, but the total work cannot be done as the Lord wants it done merely by those doing the work who may be present at meetings.

For you who no longer posses it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.

Hence, even in the domain of natural science the aid of the experimental method becomes indispensable whenever the problem set is the analysis of transient and impermanent phenomena, and not merely the observation of persistent and relatively constant objects.