Epictetus

“ In answer to Epicurus
Even Epicurus understands that we are by nature social beings, but having once set our good in the husk which we wear, he cannot go on and say anything inconsistent with this. For, he next insists emphatically upon the principle that we ought neither to admire nor to accept anything that is detached from the nature of the good; and he is right in so doing. But how, then, can we still be social beings, if affection for our own children is not a natural sentiment? Why do you dissuade the wise man from bringing up children? ”

“ Yet, despite the fact that he knows this, he still has the audacity to say, "Let us not bring up children." But a sheep does not abandon its own offspring, nor a wolf; and yet does a man abandon his? What do you wish us to do? ”

“ There is no evidence to support the common explanation that Epicurus had compared children to mice. ↑ Since flies have no social organization or relationships, and there is nothing to compel one to live like a man, and not like an unsocial animal, except one's own sense of fitness of things. ”