Profound joy has more of severity than gaiety in it. [ Montaigne ]

The severity of the laws prevents the execution of them. [ Montesquieu ]

Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites by severity. [ St. Francis de Sales ]

Ridicule is often employed with more power and success than severity. [ Horace ]

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

Ridicule often cuts the Gordian knot more effectively than the severity of satire. [ Horace ]

Ridicule often settles matters of importance better and more effectually than severity. [ Horace ]

Fables take off from the severity of instruction, and enforce it at the same time that they conceal it. [ Addison ]

Much in the world may be done by severity, more by love, but most of all by discernment and impartial justice. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment and childlike mirthfulness. [ Thoreau ]

It is pride which fills the world with so much harshness and severity. We are rigorous to offenses as if we bad never offended. [ Blair ]