“In causes of life and death, judges ought (as far as the law permitteth) in justice to remember mercy; and to cast a severe eye upon the example, but a merciful eye upon the person.”
The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Judicature
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Francis Bacon 295
English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and auth… 1561–1626Related quotes
The Ocean of Theosophy by William Q. Judge (1893), Chapter 11, Karma
A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life
“Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!”
Last Poems (1936-1939)
Context: No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!
“Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.”
"Sir Arthur's Quotations" http://www.clarkefoundation.org/about-sir-arthur/sir-arthurs-quotations/, The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.
Disputed
World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000)
As quoted in David Crockett : His Life and Adventures (1875) by John Stevens Cabot Abbott, Ch. 11
“Pyrrhus: Mercy often means giving death, not life.”
Pyrrhus: Mortem misericors saepe pro vita dabit.
Troades (The Trojan Women), line 329; Translation by Emily Wilson
Tragedies
Table-Talk (1857)
Context: The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature, — were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.