quotations about mercy
To discountenance mercy, which has struck off the chains of the slave, which has mitigated the horrors of war, which has raised women from servants and playthings into companions and friends, is to commit high treason against humanity and civilization.
T. B. MACAULAY
attributed, Day's Collacon
I used to think mercy meant showing kindness to someone who didn't deserve it, as if only the recipient defined the act. The girl in between has learned that mercy is defined by its giver. Our flaws are obvious, yet we are loved and able t love, if we choose, because there is that bit of the divine still smoldering in us.
SUSAN MEISSNER
The Shape of Mercy
Mercy is the apex of God's glory the way the overflow of a fountain is the apex of the fountain's fullness. God is free to be merciful because he is full and utterly self-sufficient in himself.
JOHN PIPER
Let the Nations Be Glad!
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
There is no better rule to try a doctrine by, than the question, Is it merciful, or is it unmerciful? If its character is that of mercy, it has the image of Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
HOSEA BALLOU
attributed, Day's Collacon
Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year; you will never be forgotten. No! your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind you as the stars on the brow of evening.
T. CHALMERS
attributed, Day's Collacon
How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy?
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
attributed, Animal life in Jewish tradition: attitudes and relationships
I shall temper so
Justice with mercy.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
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
A little mercy cannot pardon the least sin.
GEORGE SEATON BOWES
Illustrative Gatherings for Preachers and Teachers
Mercy is a sweet gracious working in love, mingled with plenteous pity: for mercy worketh in keeping us, and mercy worketh turning to us all things to good.
JULIAN OF NORWICH
Revelations of Divine Love
Just above our terror, the stars painted this story in perfect silver calligraphy. And our souls, too often abused by ignorance, covered our eyes with mercy.
ABERJHANI
I Made My Boy Out of Poetry
As freely as the firmament embraces the world, so mercy must encircle friend and foe.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Mary Stuart
We give our intent to love and meekness, by the working of mercy and grace we are made all fair and clean.
JULIAN OF NORWICH
Revelations of Divine Love
Love, Mercy, and Grace, sisters all, attend your wounds of silence and hope.
ABERJHANI
The River of Winged Dreams
It is altogether as worthy of God and as much becoming Him to pardon and show mercy, in case of repentance and submission and reformation, as to punish, in case of impenitency and obstinacy.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
BIBLE
Psalms 23:6
Religion carries two sorts of people in two entirely opposite directions: the mild and gentle people it carries towards mercy and justice; the persecuting people it carries into fiendish sadistic cruelty.
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD
Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead
O child of God, be more careful to keep the way of the Lord, more concentrated in heart in seeking His glory, and you will see the loving-kindness and the tender mercy of the Lord in your life.
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON
Grace: God's Unmerited Favor
God's mercy is a holy mercy, which knows how to pardon sin, not to protect it; it is a sanctuary for the penitent, not for the presumptuous.
EDWARD REYNOLDS
Israel's Prayer in Time of Trouble: With God's Gracious Answer