Anselm of Canterbury 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.

Clemency is patricide

Mercy is what moves us toward God, while justice makes us tremble in his sight.

We need Grace and forgiveness.

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.

Forgiveness is God's command.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

So don't send me up the river yet.

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

The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance.

If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not hurt this one; but after he is once dead, we cannot bring him back, no matter how sorry we may be; so the boy shall be pardoned.

Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.

Nothing enables us to forgive like knowing in our hearts that we have been forgiven.

The Lord is forgiving, but sometimes life is not forgiving.

God, who preferred the correction rather than the death of a sinner, did not desire that a homicide be punished by the exaction of another act of homicide.

To forgive and to be forgiven are the two points of holy magnificence and holy modesty; round these two centres the whole doctrine of largesse revolves.

Amnesty—an act through which sovereigns forgive the injustices they have committed.

It is better to pardon the guilty than to take the lives of the innocent

In the end, granting mercy comes down to just two people. For the recipient, the pardon is freedom. For the politician, the pardon can mean - not surprisingly - political gain.

Of him that hopes to be forgiven it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is, therefore, superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.

We deserve punishment and get forgiveness; we deserve God’s wrath and get God’s love.

Christianity teaches that when man sinned, God opted for forgiveness rather than fairness. He opted for grace and mercy rather than justice.

It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.