Mercy Quotes

I swear that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and

~ Robert G. Ingersoll

Suppose after all that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that, is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. Next to eternal life is eternal sleep.Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.I had rather think of those I have loved, and lost, as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world – I would rather think of them as unconscious dust, I would rather dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds, I would rather think of them as the lost visions of a forgotten night, than to have even the faintest fear that their naked souls have been clutched by an orthodox god.I will leave my dead where nature leaves them. Whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish, I will give it breath of sighs and rain of tears. But I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful.Upon that rock I stand. –That he will not torture the forgiving. –Upon that rock I stand. –That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime.Upon that rock I stand.The honest man, the good woman, the happy child, have nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come.Upon that rock I stand.

~ Robert G. Ingersoll

YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.So we can believe the big ones?YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

~ Terry Pratchett

Choosing life is always messy. But it is there in the messiness, in the conflicted and often confused ways we live our lives, that we can learn how much mercy matters to us all.

~ Mathew N. Schmalz

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

~ Oscar Wilde

It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

~ Voltaire

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.

~ G.k. Chesterton

Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand, it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.

~ Wendell Berry

I was thinking, that when my time comes, I should be sorry if the only plea I had to offer was that of justice. Because it might mean that only justice would be meted out to me.

~ Agatha Christie

The time's gone by for sentiment and all that foolery. Mercy's all very well but after all it's justice that clinches the bargain.

~ Walter De La Mare

The robot said, “I have been trying, friend Julius, to understand some remarks Elijah made to me earlier. Perhaps I am beginning to, for it suddenly seems to me that the destruction of what should not be, that is, the destruction of what you people call evil, is less just and desirable than the conversion of this evil into what you call good.” He hesitated, then, almost as though he were surprised at his own words, he said, “Go, and sin no more!

~ R. Daneel Olivaw

Walter's case taught me that fear and anger are a threat to justice; they can infect a community, a state, or a nation and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous.

~ Bryan Stevenson

Justice shall be mixed with mercy. You shall not always be an Ass.

~ C.s. Lewis

The ugliness that man can do to man might cast a shadow between you and the certainty of the justice and mercy God can do to him hereafter. It takes half a lifetime to reach the spot where eternity is always visible, and the crude injustice of the hour shrivels out of sight.

~ Ellis Peters

[The] self overcoming of justice: one knows the beautiful name it has given itself--mercy...

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time. Not only that, but maybe the basic message of original sin isn't feel guilty all the time. Maybe it is more along these lines: We all have a notion of what it means to be good, and we can't live up to it all the time.

~ Paul Kalanithi

Embracing our brokenness creates a need and a desire for mercy and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy.

~ Bryan Stevenson

A sentence which might bear in mind that our great struggle is that of fear, and that if a man has killed compulsively, it is because he was extremely frightened. Above all, a justice which might examine itself, & recognize that all of us, a living quagmire, founded in darkness, & for this reason not a man's evil should be cosigned to another man's evil: so that the latter may not shoot to kill without restraint or censure. A justice which will not forget that we are all dangerous, & that at the hour when the executant of justice kills, he is no longer protecting us or seeking to eliminate a criminal; he is committing his own crime, which he has been harboring for a considerable time. At the hour of killing a criminal- at that very moment, an innocent man is being put to death. No, no, I am not asking for the sublime, nor for the things which gradually become the words which help me to sleep peacefully. Those of us who take refuge in the abstract are a mixture of forgiveness & vague charity. What I want is something much harsher & much more difficult: I want the terrestrial.

~ Clarice Lispector

He tells people that they can no more expect justice in the afterlife than in the mortal plane, but he doesn't do this to dissuade them from worshipping God; on the contrary, he encourages them to do so. What he insists on is that they not love God under a misapprehension, that if they wish to love God, they be prepared to do so no matter His intentions. God is not just, God is not kind, God is not merciful, and understanding that is essential to true devotion.

~ Ted Chiang

The Underworld had no mercy. It only had justice

~ Rick Riordan

We can not begin to administer justice without understanding the concept of truth and mercy.

~ Paul Bamikole

Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution, justice without mercy is cruelty.

~ Thomas Aquinas

Sorrow and profound fatigue are at the heart of Dewey's silence. It had been his ambition to learn exactly what happened in that house that night. Twice now he'd been told, and the two versions were very much alike, the only serious discrepancy being that Hickock attributed all four deaths to Smith, while Smith contended that Hickock had killed the two women. But the confessions, though they answered questions of how and why, failed to satisfy his sense of meaningful design. The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey could not forget their sufferings. Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger - with, rather, a measure of sympathy - for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another. Dewey's sympathy, however, was not deep enough to accommodate either forgiveness or mercy. He hoped to see Perry and his partner hanged - hanged back to back.

~ Truman Capote

I have a secret passion for mercy. But justice is what keeps happening to people.

~ Ross Macdonald

Mercy is a contingency plan, devised by the guilty in the eventuality that they are caught. Justice is the domain of the just. - Richard Rahl

~ Terry Goodkind

The oligarchs do not care what justice is, only what seems just. They do not care what mercy is, only what appears merciful. Thus justice and mercy will always escape them.

~ Catherynne M. Valente

High justice would in no way be debased if ardent love should cancel instantly the debts these penitents must satisfy.

~ Dante Alighieri

One must always be prepared to switch sides with justice, that fugitive of the winning camp.

~ Simone Weil

Thankfully, God has shown us that hope, in its million different forms, always springs from three primary colors: justice, mercy, and love.

~ Richard Dahlstrom

Too much mercy... often resulted in further crimes which were fatal to innocent victims who need not have been victims if justice had been put first and mercy second.

~ Agatha Christie

I shouldn’t complain about God’s mercy to others while thanking Him for His mercy to me. I shouldn’t commit the sin of pride by justifying my rebellion or my running from God compared to other people’s sin. Who am I to be angry at what the angels in Heaven rejoice in?

~ Teresa Schultz

For in that perfect garden when one day entered sin,An animal was murdered for garments made of skin.When figs of human effort produced religious strife,The Father tailored clothing for Adam and his wife.

~ Joyce Rachelle

May we be enabled to say No to sin and Yes to the sinner.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

People who excuse their faults and claim they didn't deserved to be punished - there are lots of them. But those who don't excuse their faults and admit they didn't deserve to be spared - they are few.

~ Zhuangzi

Buck Barrow, brother of Clyde Barrow (Bonnie & Clyde) was once asked Where are you wanted by the law? Barrow replied, Wherever I've been. What a picture of our own guilt. We cannot escape our sinfulness because it follows us everywhere. Neither can we escape the mercy of God that is always there.

~ William Branks

I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.

~ Kahlil Gibran

We need to let ourselves be evangelized by the poor. They have much to teach us.

~ Pope Francis

He may have confused honor with with with ruthlessness.

~ T.j. Stiles

Humility is recognizing the fullness of our sin, so we can embrace the fullness of God's mercy.

~ Alisa Hope Wagner

When we go through life believing that we need mercy, we’re more likely to extend it. As humans our tendency is to want justice for others, but mercy for ourselves. It doesn’t work that way. We reap what we sow. (Galatians 6:7) And the timing isn’t ours—it’s God’s. He often extends us mercy, not when we are well behaved, but when we are miserable, helpless, wicked, ungodly, and powerless. Even when we bring on our problems by our own choices, His mercy comes when we cry for it. To refuse to cry for it because we feel unworthy, is a win for Satan.

~ Toni Sorenson