quotations about mercy
Humankind's limited scope of mercy was reserved for their own.
STEPHENIE MEYER
The Host
In this life, mercy and forgiveness is our way and evermore leadeth us to grace.
JULIAN OF NORWICH
Revelations of Divine Love
Mercy will get you killed, but sometimes it's all that makes us human.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Burnt Offerings
Mercy often inflicts death.
SENECA
Troades
Everywhere the need exists for maternal sympathy and help, and thus we are able to recapitulate in the one word motherliness that which we have developed as the characteristic value of woman. Only, the motherliness must be that which does not remain within the narrow circle of blood relations or of personal friends; but in accordance with the model of the Mother of Mercy, it must have its root in universal divine love for all who are there, belabored and burdened.
EDITH STEIN
The Significance of Woman's Intrinsic Value in National Life
I will show mercy to whomever I will show mercy, and I will show compassion to whomever I will show compassion.
GOD
Romans 9:15
God expects Us to have Mercy. God demands it. And yet how much Mercy does He show Us?
AUGUSTUS HILL
Oz
And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
BIBLE
Micah 6:8
Rats and conquerors must expect no mercy in misfortune.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon: Or, Many Things in a Few Words
Any time any of us reaches out, any time we pour even a drop of love, compassion, simple human decency (no matter how small; how seemingly insignificant) into the sea of earthly existence -- we are, each and every one of us -- the being called Mercy.
J. M. DEMATTEIS
Mercy
God puts consolation only where He has first put pain, and causes His mercies to abound nowhere, save in the furrow traced by penitence and laborious effort.
MME. SWETCHINE
The Writings of Madame Swetchine
Were there but a single mercy apportioned to each moment of our lives, the sum would rise very high; but our arithmetic is confounded when every minute has more than we can distinctly number.
NICHOLAS ROWE
attributed, Day's Collacon
The merciful man is one that loves to show mercy, not only on account of a soft natural temper, self-interest, philosophical considerations; but from an unfeigned regard to the authority of God in his holy law, an earnest desire after conformity to his image; and especially from a serious sense of his pardoning mercy in Christ Jesus. How can he but forgive a few pence, who is himself forgiven in ten thousand talents? Has God, all-gracious and merciful, opened his bowels of compassion to me, a wretched guilty creature: and shall I shut up my bowels of compassion from my distressed brother? Shall I put on bowels of adamant and brass, who am a pensioner of the tender mercies of God? It is mercy that feeds me; it is mercy that clothes me; it is mercy that delivers my soul from the lowest hell, where I had been miserable beyond all expression. I have freely received mercy, and shall I not freely give? He is merciful to others, for God is merciful to him.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"On the Merciful Man", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
Mercy is a working that cometh of the goodness of God, and it shall last in working all along, as sin is suffered to pursue rightful souls. And when sin hath no longer leave to pursue, then shall the working of mercy cease, and then shall all be brought to rightfulness and therein stand without end.
JULIAN OF NORWICH
Revelations of Divine Love
God's mercies are tender. They are unbounded, and they are tender. Our mercy is not tender. What little mercy you find in man is often harsh and hard. It is not tender at all. It is a common saying among us, "I forgive, but I do not forget." We "forgive" with an air of superiority, superciliously. There is often harshness, hardness, unkindness, in the way in which our mercy is bestowed. You have often received mercy in such a way as to make you feel that you had nearly paid for it, in having to suffer the rude unkindly manner in which it was bestowed. And even when that is not so, but when man bestows his kindness and vouchsafes his mercy in his blandest way, you could never think of calling it tender.... But God forgives, and when he forgives, he does it tenderly. There is no upbraiding. He blots out the transgression, and there is no more remembrance of it at all. He forgets as soon as he forgives.
GEORGE SEATON BOWES
Illustrative Gatherings for Preachers and Teachers
There is nothing little in God; His mercy is like Himself; it is infinite. You cannot measure it. His mercy is so great that it forgives great sins to great sinners, after great lengths of time, and then gives great favors and great privileges, and raises us up to great enjoyments in the great heaven of the great God. It is undeserved mercy, as indeed all true mercy must be, for deserved mercy is only a misnomer for justice.
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
Devotional Classics of C. H. Spurgeon
Thus, by the unutterable mercy of God, even the very punishment of wickedness has become the armor of virtue, and the penalty of the sinner becomes the reward of the righteous.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death.
JACK LONDON
The Call of the Wild
A good man is merciful to his beast, and much more to his brother. Merciful to his beast, did we say? yea, to the beast of his mortal enemy.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"On the Merciful Man", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
For I beheld the property of mercy, and I beheld the property of grace: which have two manners of working in one love.
JULIAN OF NORWICH
Revelations of Divine Love