Catherynne M. Valente Quotes

Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.

Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.

To pardon the oppressor is to deal harshly with the oppressed.

Spare me through your mercy, do not punish me through your justice.

I regret and suffer those losses, but it's God's will. He will pardon me if I committed excesses, but I don't think I did.

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.

Forgiveness is God's command.

They do injury to the good who spares the bad.

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

There is an appropriate time to release somebody or to give them a break.

The Savior has suffered not just for our iniquities but also for the inequality, the unfairness, the pain, the anguish, and the emotional distresses that so frequently beset us.

If I say, 'I forgive you,' I have implicitly said you have done something wrong to me. But what forgiveness is at its heart is both saying that justice has been violated and not letting that violation count against the offender.

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

As for ourselves, yes, we must be meek, bear injustice, malice, rash judgment. We must turn the other cheek, give up our cloak, go a second mile.

I love Jesus Christ. I am a Christian... I cry when I see injustice, children dying of hunger.

He who pardons easily invites offense.

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.

It would be judicious to act with magnanimity towards a prostrate foe.

I'm very forgiving so I forgive most things, really.

In the beds which the piety of the public has prepared on every side, stricken men await the verdict of fate.

A king who desires his own welfare must always forgive litigants, infants, aged and sick men, who inveigh against him.

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

A judge who cannot punish, associates himself in the end with the criminal.

Clemency is patricide

No harm will come to me. The Assembly is prepared to treat us leniently.