quotations about mercy
Mercy listens -- really listens, with interest and concern -- then smiles, and reaches out her hand.
J. M. DEMATTEIS
Mercy
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Romeo and Juliet
If a person is convicted of a crime, there's a slight chance he will face a kind of judge who will show him a little mercy. Maybe reduce his sentence by a few years. That's not a lot of mercy. It's a little mercy, and the truth is, when it comes to humans, mercy is hard to come by. Not so with God. His mercy is like a huge bucket of water filled to the rim so that if you bumped into it, it would spill all over you. His mercy is so great that he doesn't just forgive us when we fail, but he erases any record of our failure. He doesn't just reduce our sentence--eternal punishment--he eliminates it and sets us free.
CRAIG GROESCHEL
What Is God Really Like?
Who will not mercy unto others show,
How can he mercy ever hope to have?
EDMUND SPENSER
The Faerie Queene
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in Washington, D.C., 1865
Mercy. That is the gospel. The whole of it in one word.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Mercy is stronger than your sword.
P. C. CAST
Dragon's Oath
If the end of one mercy were not the beginning of another, we were undone.
PHILIP HENRY
An Account of the Life and Death of Philip Henry
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Merchant of Venice
Mercy and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer. If the wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it isn't mercy.
TIMOTHY KELLER
The Prodigal God
We may imitate the Deity in all His attributes, but mercy is the only one in which we can pretend to equal Him. We cannot, indeed, give like God, but we may forgive like Him.
LAURENCE STERNE
The Works of Laurence Sterne, Volume 6
People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears -- not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy.
JAMES BALDWIN
Another Country
The unmerciful man is most certainly an unblessed man. His sympathies are all dried up; he is afflicted with a chronic jaundice, and lives timidly and darkly in a little, narrow rat-hole of distrust.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Always seek justice, but love only mercy. To love justice and hate mercy is but a doorway to more injustice.
CRISS JAMI
Healology
The Lord's mercy often rides to the door of our heart upon the black horse of affliction.
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
All of Grace
It is mercy, not justice or courage or even heroism, that alone can defeat evil.
PETER KREEFT
The Philosophy of Tolkien
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
JESUS
Matthew 5:7
A God all mercy is a God unjust.
EDWARD YOUNG
The Complaint, or Night-Thoughts on Life
The world will give you that once in awhile, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.
SUE MONK KIDD
The Secret Life of Bees
Shall we come to the works of mercy? What are the sweet waters that issue from this fountain? The merciful man will not always have it in his power actually to relieve the distressed, but he weeps for them; wishes for them; prays for them, and does for them according as he is able. If they are indigent, or in want of the necessaries of life, hungry or naked, he puts them not off with good words; but gives them things they have need of, or excites others to do it that are more wealthy. If they are insolvent, and unable to pay their just debts, he will not imprison, where nothing can be had; nor take for a pledge the utensils by which they must earn their daily bread, or the garments in which they must sleep. If they are solitary, he will visit them; if disconsolate, he will comfort them; if ignorant, he will instruct them; if doubtful, he will counsel them; if aspersed and calumniated unjustly, he will vindicate their characters; if oppressed, he will espouse their cause; if weak, he will bear their infirmities; if careless and secure, he will warn them, and with compassion pull them out of the fire; if they have fallen, he will endeavor to recover them. His wounds are faithful. Blessed be his anger, for it is kind; his wrath, for it is merciful. He remembers the blessed maxim of the apostle James, that "he who converteth a soul from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death; and shall cover a multitude of sins."
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"On the Merciful Man", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity