If you keep your pain within your heart, you stand the risk of creating a deep wound in it. And so you must be able to share your deepest pain with people who are very close to you. The very act of sharing it with them reduces its severity. Sharing the pain in public can magnify it 226 | 31 Ways to Happiness since numerous people will be talking about your pain.
When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.
The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
Severity is allowable where gentleness has no effect.