Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

The Christian - the biblical - concept of mercy toward wrongdoers only exists in relation to justice. Showing mercy, in relation to wrongdoing, means treating someone better than they deserve.

I think for really good-hearted people, that idea of putting yourself in the shoes of a monster to figure out why they acted that way, that's a really frightening idea.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

Think carefully before asking for justice. Mercy might be safer.

It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy - from lack of character.

A king who desires his own welfare must always forgive litigants, infants, aged and sick men, who inveigh against him.

Mercy and anger do not go together.

Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.

Let us be merciful as well as just.

Mercy trumps justice.

...the ultimate dwindling resource in the human arrangement isn’t cheap oil or potable water or even common sense, but mercy.

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

Those who understand evil pardon it.

Some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.

When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.

Spare me through your mercy, do not punish me through your justice.

We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

Clemency is the noblest trait which can reveal a true monarch to the world.

To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.

The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence.

Why does God endow us with compassion?

Men are only as great as they are kind.

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.