No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
Titus Andronicus, Act i. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Yet I shall temper so
Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most
Them fully satisfied, and Thee appease.
Paradise Lost, Bk. X. MILTON.
MERRIMENT.
Gold that buys health can never be ill spent,
Nor hours laid out in harmless merriment.
Westward Ho, Act v. Sc. 3. J. WEBSTER.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Tempest, Act v. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
The glad circles round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
The Seasons: Summer. J. THOMSON.
As merry as the day is long.
Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
Taming of the Shrew: Induction, Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
His eye begets occasion for his wit.
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-loving jest.
Love's Labor's Lost, Act ii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.