quotations about mercy
Mercy is the spring of God's long-suffering; forgiveness is the activity of his mercy; and long-suffering is its quiet flow.
J. H. EVANS
attributed, Illustrative Gatherings for Preachers and Teachers
You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.
GRAHAM GREENE
Brighton Rock
It is highly convenient to believe in the infinite mercy of God when you feel the need of mercy, but remember also his infinite justice.
B. R. HAYDON
Table Talk
Reason to rule, mercy to forgive:
The first is law, the last prerogative.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Hind and the Panther
Mercy is a disposition to feel the miseries of others; and to do what lies in our power to prevent and redress them. There is a natural mercy consisting in a softness of temper, and an aversion at seeing, hearing, or even thinking of the distresses of our fellow-creatures. There is a moral mercy, when we pity the miserable from moral considerations. But these may, no doubt, be found in unrenewed hearts, and were actually practiced by many of the Gentiles that knew not God. A man who would shudder in every joint to see a fellow creature broke upon the wheel, or broiling on the fire; a man who would be far from thinking it a glorious spectacle to look at a ditch full of the blood of slaughtered men, is not immediately a merciful man in the full and scriptural sense. It is true, this humane and gentle temper is far more amiable than savage barbarity. To be implacable and unmerciful, is a truly heathen character; and the habitations of cruelty should be found nowhere but in the dark places of the earth. But there is a christian mercy, which is often enjoined as a weighty matter of the law, and an eminent grace of the gospel; and with which none are endowed but the elect of God; the holy and the beloved. Let us describe it from its springs, its objects, and its acts.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"On the Merciful Man", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.
BIBLE
Psalms 116:1-2
Mercy among the virtues is like the moon among the stars--not so sparkling and vivid as many, but dispensing a calm radiance that hallows the whole. It is the bow that rests upon the bosom of the cloud when the storm has passed. It is the light that hovers above the judgment-seat.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
If you are strong, be merciful.
CHILO
attributed, Day's Collacon
Where mercy is shown, mercy is given.
DUANE DOG CHAPMAN
Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given
The Mercy of Allah is an Ocean, Our sins are a lump of clay clenched between the beak of a pigeon. The pigeon is perched on the branch of a tree at the edge of that ocean. It only has to open it's beak.
LEILA ABOULELA
Minaret
So we shall now consider: mercifulness, a work of love even if it can give nothing and is able to do nothing. We shall endeavor according to the capacities granted to us to make as clear as possible, as inviting as possible, to bring as close as possible to the poor person what comfort he has in being able to be merciful.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
Works of Love
When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view I'm lost,
In wonder, love and praise.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Hymn
If there is a single definition of healing it is to enter with mercy and awareness those pains, mental and physical, from which we have withdrawn in judgment and dismay.
STEPHEN LEVINE
A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last
The more merciful acts thou dost, the more mercy thou wilt receive.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
But I want to be better than the lessons they taught me. I want my love to be greater that my hate, my mercy to be stronger than my vengeance.
AMY ENGEL
The Book of Ivy
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
Mercy will get you killed, but sometimes it's all that makes us human.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Burnt Offerings
Oh, Mercy -- now I understand: The secret behind your actions, the thread that binds all these seemingly random events.... There's no great or small! No question of size or importance! Each act of compassion -- however minor it may appear to our blind eyes -- affects all Creation; shakes it to its roots!
J. M. DEMATTEIS
Mercy
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