“Reason gains all men, by compelling none.
Mercy was always Heaven's distinguished mark:
And he, who bears it not, has no friend there.”
Don Alvarez in Act I, Sc. 1; also misquoted as "Reason gains all people by compelling none."
Alzira: A Tragedy (1736)
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Aaron Hill (writer)11
British writer 1685–1750Related quotes
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), II : The Starting-Point
Ernest Renan (1823–1892) French philosopher and writer
Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 3. L’Avenir de la Science (1890).
John Hoole (1727–1803) British translator
Book X, line 24
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)
Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso
L'amante, per aver quel che desia,
Senza guardar che Dio tutto ode e vede,
Aviluppa promesse e giuramenti,
Che tutti spargon poi per l'aria i venti.
Canto X, stanza 5 (tr. John Hoole)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Context: p>Whatever prize he wanted lay ready for him — scientific social, literary, political — and he knew how to take them in turn. With ordinary luck he would die at eighty the richest and most many-sided genius of his day.So little egoistic he was that none of his friends felt envy of his extraordinary superiority, but rather grovelled before it, so that women were jealous of the power he had over men; but women were many and Kings were one. The men worshipped not so much their friend, as the ideal American they all wanted to be.</p
William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist
Source: Conversation (1782), Line 347.