C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Reproof (See Reproach)
Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye.
Reprove thy friend privately; commend him publicly.
I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.
There is an oblique way of reproof which takes off from the sharpness of it.
Better a little chiding than a great deal of heart-break.
Aversion from reproof is not wise. It is a mark of a little mind. A great man can afford to lose; a little insignificant fellow is afraid of being snuffed out.
Reproof is a medicine like mercury or opium; if it be improperly administered, it will do harm instead of good.
He had such a gentle method of reproving their faults that they were not so much afraid as ashamed to repeat them.
The severest punishment suffered by a sensitive mind, for injury inflicted upon another, is the consciousness of having done it.
Some persons take reproof good-humoredly enough, unless you are so unlucky as to hit a sore place. Then they wince and writhe, and start up and knock you down for your impertinence, or wish you good morning.
Whenever anything is spoken against you that is not true, do not pass by or despise it because it is false; but forthwith examine yourself, and consider what you have said or done that may administer a just occasion of reproof.