May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t.

The line encapsulates a deliberately hard-edged, martial ethos: mercy is framed as a divine prerogative, while the speaker claims an uncompromising human duty to defeat the enemy without sentimental restraint. Whether or not Patton said it verbatim, the sentiment aligns with a rhetorical tradition of battlefield bravado meant to steel resolve, intimidate opponents, and signal absolute commitment to victory. It also dramatizes a tension common in wartime leadership between personal morality and operational necessity—casting compassion as something that must be deferred to God so the commander can focus on decisive action. As a quotation, it functions more as a mythic emblem of ferocity than a nuanced ethical statement.