Letters 99.2

but those who have assumed an indulgence in grief should be rebuked forthwith, and should learn that there are certain follies even in tears.

“Is it solace that you look for? Let me give you a scolding instead! You are like a woman in the way you take your son’s death; what would you do if you had lost an intimate friend? A son, a little child of unknown promise, is dead; a fragment of time has been lost.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 99.2, translated by Richard Mott Gummere