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People don’t talk about mercy very much these days—it has a rather old-fashioned ring to it. but it exists and its power is quite extraordinary

People don’t talk about mercy very much these days—it has a rather old-fashioned ring to it. but it exists and its power is quite extraordinary

Approximate author period: c. 1948 AD · modern

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Alexander McCall Smith
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1948 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1948; activity date not established; Wikidata Q364901, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q364901 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 131024; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.