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Teach me to feel another's woe,
To right the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

— Alexander Pope The Universal Prayer (1738)

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Source and credibility

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Source: 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?"
Work: The Universal Prayer, 1738
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Alexander Pope

A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.

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Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.

Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

An Essay on Criticism (1711)

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

The Rape of the Lock (1712)

Say, is not absence death to those who love?

Pastorals (1709)

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Topics

Forgiveness

More quotes by Alexander Pope

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.

Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Can never be a mouse of any soul.

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It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.

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Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep away and not forgive the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?

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It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.

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I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alexander Pope (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.