She argues, for example, that the damage done to Hamburg and France by mercenaries and an increasingly commercial culture is far greater than the damage caused by the violence of the French revolution, writing that "the sword has been merciful, compared with the depredations made on human life by contractors, and by the swarm of locusts who have battened on the pestilence they spread abroad".
"God of infinite goodness, our strength in adversity, our health in weakness, our comfort in sorrow, be merciful to us, your people.
The weather was merciful - below freezing, but with no windchill to bite through my clothing.
"As you can see," he says with perfect timing, "the working staff is none too stable to begin with, so please be merciful".
And in the end, when she marries the prince, who wants to severely punish his new bride's so-called family, she pleads with him to be merciful, adding sagely, "My revenge is to forgive them".
May God now be merciful to me and my wife, so that one day, from the depths of our souls, without forgetting our son, we may soothe our pain".
Brown should heed Machiavelli's advice for rulers to be "merciful and not cruel" and "proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity".
Four up with five to play, Montgomerie saw no reason to be merciful.
After all, religious authorities repeatedly argue, when faced with hard cases and grieving widows, that death can be merciful and a release.
With power now within her grasp, she has pledged to be merciful to the people who were not.
