While seeming cruel to some, the brigade adds small, encouraging notes to the lumps such as "Try Harder next year," in an attempt to steer the children back to the nice list.

As a practicing pediatrician in the 1930s, Spock noticed that prevailing methods in pediatric care seemed cruel and ignored the emotional needs of the child.

Still, Mr. McEnroe said, some of the novel-reading callers to the paper have seemed unnecessarily cruel.

So, you should know that whatever he did to you that might have seemed cruel or heartless, it was done with the best of motives.

The Traveler beneficence resembled that of the destroyer: it seemed cruel, but actually fostered an acceleration of maturity.

It would have seemed melodramatic and cruel.

It had seemed unnecessarily cruel.

I knew the men were almost as tense about it as I was, so waiting seemed cruel, or maybe it wasn't cruel.

That seemed cruel and not like her; and yet she may be right.

Better that they were left in darkness; moonlight would have seemed cruel.