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

— G. K. Chesterton

The Coloured Lands (1938)

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G. K. Chesterton 229

English mystery novelist and Christian apologist 1874–1936

Cynthia Rylant (1954) American author of children's books and librarian

Source: Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

“The Christian gospel is a summons to peace, calling for justice beyond anger, mercy beyond justice, forgiveness beyond mercy, love beyond forgiveness.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

“It's daft, locking us up," said Nanny. "I'd have had us killed."
"That's because you're basically good," said Magrat. "The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

“I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

“Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me — the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love — He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us — nature did it all — not the gods of the religions”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

Thomas Edison ""No Immortality of the Soul" says Thomas A. Edison. In Fact, He Doesn't Believe There Is a Soul — Human Beings Only an Aggregate of Cells and the Brain Only a Wonderful Machine, Says Wizard of Electricity". New York Times. October 2, 1910
1910s

“Pope John Paul II is a tireless champion of peace who has dealt with the theme of peace often and at some length. Like his predecessors, John Paul II sees a close connection between justice and peace. John Paul II believes that justice is rooted in love and “finds its most significant expression in mercy”. Hence, justice, “if separated from merciful love, becomes cold and cutting.””

Kurien Kunnumpuram (1931–2018) Indian theologian

Kunnumpuram, K. (ed) (2007) World Peace: An Impossible Dream? , Mumbai: St Pauls
On Peace

“Indulgence for the royalists, cry certain men, mercy for the villains! No! mercy for the innocent, mercy for the weak, mercy for the unfortunate, mercy for humanity.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

"On Political Morality" (5 February 1794)

“Let us rise in the moral power of womanhood; and give utterance to the voice of outraged mercy, and insulted justice, and eternal truth, and mighty love and holy freedom.”

Maria Weston Chapman (1806–1885) American abolitionist

From [Boston Female Anti-slavery Society, Annual Report of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, https://books.google.com/books?id=W5I5AQAAMAAJ, 1836, The Society, 30], as quoted in [Dell, Diana, Memorable Quotations: American Women Writers of the Past, https://books.google.com/books?id=eM3IWooc_zIC, December 2000, iUniverse, 978-0-595-16230-7, 73]

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Section II, Chap. III.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part II

“Mercy from the Father and the Mother, mercy from the Sister and the Brother, Mercy from the Bastard, five times mercy, High Ones, we beseech you.… Mercy, High Ones. Not justice, please, not justice. We would all be fools to pray for justice.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000)

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

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