But whoever gives birth to useless children, what would you say of him except that he has bred sorrows for himself, and furnishes laughter for his enemies.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If you were not a sinful, polluted, helpless, and miserable creature, this Savior would not be suited to you, and you would not be comprehended in his gracious invitations to the children of men.
Whoever happens to give birth to mischievous children lives always with unending grief in his spirit and heart.
You have doubtless heard, my dear mother, the misfortune of Madame de Chartres, whose child is born dead. But I would rather have even that, terrible as it is, than be as I am without hope of any children.
That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
Lucky that man whose children make his happiness in life and not his grief, the anguished disappointment of his hopes.
Beware of him who hates the laugh of a child.
For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God.
Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.
He that loves not his wife and children feeds a lioness at home, and broods a nest of sorrows.
With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.