
“The wheel of a man's life. No mercy. No pity.”
Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)
Hagakure (c. 1716)
“The wheel of a man's life. No mercy. No pity.”
Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)
Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 53.
Stanza 10; this extends upon the theme evident in the lines of Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene (1596), Book V, Canto ii, Stanza 42: "Who will not mercie unto others show, How can he mercy ever hope to have?"
The Universal Prayer (1738)
“The Wheel of Time and the wheel of a man's life turn alike without pity or mercy.”
Lews Therin Telamon
(15 October 1994)
1840s, Past and Present (1843)
Context: Thou, O World, how wilt thou secure thyself against this man? Thou canst not hire him by thy guineas; nor by thy gibbets and law-penalties restrain him. He eludes thee like a Spirit. Thou canst not forward him, thou canst not hinder him. Thy penalties, thy poverties, neglects, contumelies: behold, all these are good for him. Come to him as an enemy; turn from him as an unfriend; only do not this one thing,—infect him not with thy own delusion: the benign Genius, were it by very death, shall guard him against this!—What wilt thou do with him? He is above thee, like a god. Thou, in thy stupendous three-inch pattens, art under him. He is thy born king, thy conqueror and supreme lawgiver: not all the guineas and cannons, and leather and prunella, under the sky can save thee from him. Hardest thickskinned Mammon-world, ruggedest Caliban shall obey him, or become not Caliban but a cramp. Oh, if in this man, whose eyes can flash Heaven's lightning, and make all Calibans into a cramp, there dwelt not, as the essence of his very being, a God's justice, human Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy,—I should tremble for the world. But his strength, let us rejoice to understand, is even this: The quantity of Justice, of Valour and Pity that is in him. To hypocrites and tailored quacks in high places, his eyes are lightning; but they melt in dewy pity softer than a mother's to the downpressed, maltreated; in his heart, in his great thought, is a sanctuary for all the wretched.
“The dimensions of this mercy are above my thoughts. It is for aught I know, a crowning mercy.”
Letter to William Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons (4 September 1651)
The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Judicature
“I wonder why it is the man who pleads for mercy never gives it.”
Source: The Quick and the Dead