Pater dicit se iustitiam sine misericordia duram, misericordiam sine iustitia caecam putare.

The main verb is dicit = says.

Everything after that forms what Latin usually calls an indirect statement:

• Pater dicit ... = The father says ...
• se ... putare = that he thinks / that he considers ...

So the backbone is:

• Pater — subject
• dicit — main verb
• se ... putare — the reported content of what he says

Inside that reported content, putare governs two parallel ideas:

• iustitiam sine misericordia duram
• misericordiam sine iustitia caecam

So the structure is essentially:

The father says that he considers justice without mercy harsh, and mercy without justice blind.

Because Latin very often does not use a separate word like English that in this kind of sentence.

Instead, after verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, hearing, and similar verbs, Latin commonly uses the accusative-and-infinitive construction:

• dicit se putare = he says that he thinks

So where English often says:

• He says that ...

Latin often says:

• He says him/that-person to think ...

That sounds strange in English, but it is normal Latin grammar.

Se is the reflexive pronoun in the accusative case. Here it refers back to pater, the subject of dicit.

So:

• Pater dicit se putare = The father says that he thinks

Not:

• The father says that someone else thinks

This is a very common Latin pattern. In an indirect statement, the subject of the infinitive is put in the accusative, so se is the accusative subject of putare.

A native English speaker often expects he here, but Latin does not do that. It uses se because the person thinking is the same person as the subject of the main verb.

Grammatically, it is the subject of the infinitive putare, even though it appears in the accusative case.

That is one of the key features of the Latin indirect statement:

• the subject of the infinitive is in the accusative
• the verb itself is in the infinitive

So in:

• Pater dicit se putare

se is not really the thing being said; it is the person doing the thinking inside the reported statement.

You can think of it like this:

• Main clause: Pater dicit
• Indirect statement: se putare

They are accusative because they are the things being considered by putare.

Latin putare can mean:

• to think
• to consider
• to regard as

Here it works like consider in English:

• iustitiam ... duram putare = to consider justice ... harsh
• misericordiam ... caecam putare = to consider mercy ... blind

So:

• iustitiam is the object of putare
• misericordiam is also an object of putare

The sentence gives two parallel judgments, both depending on the same putare.

Because they agree with the nouns they describe:

• iustitiam is feminine accusative singular, so duram matches it
• misericordiam is feminine accusative singular, so caecam matches it

These adjectives are functioning as predicate adjectives after putare:

• iustitiam duram putare = to consider justice harsh
• misericordiam caecam putare = to consider mercy blind

So the endings are not random; they show agreement with their corresponding nouns.

Because Latin does not need esse here.

With verbs like putare, Latin can use:

• object + predicate adjective

So:

• iustitiam duram putare = to consider justice harsh
• misericordiam caecam putare = to consider mercy blind

English sometimes prefers to be in a fuller translation:

• to think that justice is harsh
• to think that mercy is blind

But Latin can express that idea more compactly with putare plus an object and predicate adjective.

A learner may mentally expand it with to be, but the Latin sentence itself does not need an explicit esse.

Because sine takes the ablative case.

So:

• sine misericordia = without mercy
• sine iustitia = without justice

This is simply something you memorize with the preposition:

• sine + ablative

A very common beginner habit is to expect an accusative after every preposition, but Latin prepositions govern different cases, and sine always takes the ablative.

Because the two ideas are parallel and both depend on the same verb.

Latin is doing this:

• se [iustitiam ... duram], [misericordiam ... caecam] putare

In smoother English:

• that he considers justice without mercy harsh, and mercy without justice blind

Latin often avoids repeating a verb when one verb clearly governs multiple parallel phrases. So a second putare is unnecessary.

If it were repeated, the meaning would not really change; the sentence would just be heavier.

That is normal. Latin word order is much freer than English word order because Latin relies more on endings than on position.

English usually depends on order:

• subject + verb + object

Latin can move words around for emphasis, balance, or style.

Here the sentence is arranged in a neat, rhetorical way:

• iustitiam sine misericordia duram
• misericordiam sine iustitia caecam

Each half has the same pattern:

• noun
• sine phrase
• adjective

That creates a balanced contrast:

• justice without mercy → harsh
• mercy without justice → blind

So the word order is not random; it is stylistically shaped and very typical of Latin prose.

In this sentence, no: the natural and standard reference is back to pater.

That is exactly what reflexive se usually does in this kind of construction. It points back to the subject of the governing clause, here pater.

So:

• Pater dicit se putare = The father says that he thinks

If Latin wanted to make it clear that someone else was doing the thinking, it would normally use a different accusative form, not reflexive se.

So this is a good example of an important rule:

• se in indirect statement often refers back to the subject of the main verb.

Yes. The sentence is carefully balanced to contrast two incomplete qualities:

• justice without mercy
• mercy without justice

Latin expresses that contrast by using two parallel noun phrases and two matching adjectives:

• duram = harsh
• caecam = blind

So the grammar and the style work together. The sentence is not just giving two separate facts; it is presenting a paired moral contrast in a symmetrical form. That kind of balance is very common in Latin writing.