He stubbornly stood by them and sometimes acted with sternness.
Ugliness, formlessness, and sternness: these are rough, eccentric qualities, if we take conventional aesthetics as our guide.
It is high time that these matters were considered with greater severity and sternness.
It may be that the element of sternness would be most suitably achieved by shorter sentences at an earlier stage in the criminal's career.
I believe in a little hardness and sternness in these matters.
He can be stern sometimes, and there was an element of sternness in what he said.
The permanent safeguard must be a sympathetic government, which realises the elements of good as well as the elements of danger, and which suppresses criminal extravagances with inflexible sternness.
It was said that he governed with integrity and sternness, and the people benefitted from his governance.
