Severity Quotes

• Severity is allowable where gentleness has no effect.

  Pierre Corneille

  Effects, Gentleness

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, Héraclius, I, 1, 1922.

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• Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites by severity.

  Saint Francis de Sales

  Hypocrite, Gentleness

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• . . . gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force.

  Hermann Hesse

  Love Is, Rocks, Water

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• No matter the severity of suffering we experience in this life, it will always be less that what we have deserved for our sins

  C. J. Mahaney

  Suffering, Matter, Sin

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• All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Evil, Doe

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Edmond Malone (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.412

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• The smiles that encourage severity of judgment hide malice and insincerity.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Judgment, Insincerity, Malice

  "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

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• The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the ability to reach it.” – Chloe Traeger

  Jill Shalvis

  Chloe, Ability, Murphys Law

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• We deny the severity of our loved one's problem not because we are naive, but because we can't know.

  David Sheff

  Problem, Loved Ones, Deny

  David Sheff (2009). “Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction”, p.15, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The severity of your problems is a matter of perspective. Change your perspective and most of them become insignificant. Some of them will no longer exist as problems - but opportunities instead.

  Ernie J Zelinski

  Opportunity, Perspective, Matter

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• Excessive severity misses its own aim.

  Publilius Syrus

  Missing, Aim

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• God's justice stands forever against the sinner in utter severity. The vague and tenuous hope that God is 'too kind' to punish the ungodly has become deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. It hushes their fears and allows them to practice all pleasant forms of iniquity while death draws everyday nearer and the command to repent goes unregarded. As responsible moral beings, we dare not so trifle with our eternal future.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Practice, Justice, Forever

  Aiden Wilson Tozer (1965). “The Knowledge of the Holy”, p.95, Fig

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• It is better that a judge should lean on the side of compassion than severity.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Compassion, Judging, Sides

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Quixote de la Mancha (don, fict.name.) (1847). “The history of don Quixote de la Mancha. From the Span. To which is prefixed a sketch of the life and writings of the author. Select libr. ed”, p.321

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• When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

  George Eliot

  Life, Wisdom, Peace

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.47, Wordsworth Editions

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• The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.

  Steven Wright

  Funny, Humor

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• Every time I get injured I measure it's severity by asking myself 'Would this stop me from going to Disneyland?'

  Chris Colfer

  Asking, Injured, Disneyland

  Twitter post from Jan 29, 2010

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• Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!

  Oscar Wilde

  Hate, Ethics, Abstract

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.192, Wordsworth Editions

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• Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Self, Prejudice

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.143

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• Sobriety, severity, and self-respect are the foundations of all true sociality.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Respect, Self, Sobriety

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• Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Life, Nursing, Together

  "Jane Eyre". Ch. 6. Book by Charlotte Bronte, 1847.

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• ... a Christian is quite certain to fall into the same sins which he condemns in another with merciless and inhuman severity, for 'a stern king will fall into misfortunes,' and 'one who stops his ears so as not to hear the weak, shall himself cry, and there shall be none to hear him' (Prov. 13:17; 21:13).

  John Cassian

  Christian, Kings, Fall

  John Cassian (2012). “The Sacred Writings of John Cassian (Annotated Edition)”, p.471, Jazzybee Verlag

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• There are odious virtues; such as inflexible severity, and an integrity that accepts of no favor.

  Tacitus

  Integrity, Favors, Virtue

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• Nothing comes of severity if there be no leanings towards a change of heart. And if there be natural leanings towards a change of heart, what need for severity?

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Heart, Needs, Natural

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• The severity of the law of God is the necessary sequence of his infinite love.

  G. Campbell Morgan

  Law, Scary, Infinite

  G. Campbell Morgan (1998). “The Ten Commandments”, p.12, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• This avoidance of the difficult things of Scripture — of sinfulness and hell and God’s notable severity — is idolatrous and cowardly. If a man or a woman who teaches the Scriptures is afraid to explain to you the severity of God, they have betrayed you, and they love their ego more than they love you.

  Matt Chandler

  Love You, Men, Ego

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• Ridicule is often employed with more power and success than severity.

  Horace

  Ridicule, Employed

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