4 Maccabees 15:3

¹O reasoning of the sons, lord over the passions, and religion more desirable to a mother than progeny!

²The mother, when two things were set before her, religion and the safety of her seven sons for a time, on the conditional promise of a tyrant,

— 4 Maccabees 15:3 —

⁴O in what way can I describe ethically the affections of parents toward their children, the resemblance of soul and of form engrafted into the small type of a child in a wonderful manner, especially through the greater sympathy of mothers with the feelings of those born of them!

⁵for by how much mothers are by nature weak in disposition and prolific in offspring, by so much the fonder they are of children.