Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 21.8 (Patrologia Latina, vol. XXXVIII, col. 147; tr. Edmund Hill):

Now learn a lesson from your son. Your little son is crying before you to lift him onto a horse. Do you listen, do you let him have his way? Are you being cruel, or in fact kind? Tell me, what is it, what's your reason for refusing? Can anyone doubt that the reason of course is love? You are saving up your whole estate for him when he is big, and while he is a little boy crying you won't lift him up on a single horse. Everything you have, house and whatever's in it, piece of land and whatever's in it, you are saving for him. And yet this little boy's crying and you won't lift him up on a horse. Let him cry all he wants, let him cry all day, and you don't listen to him, and it's out of kindness you don't listen to him, and you would be cruel if you did.

Nunc similitudinem accipe de filio tuo. Plorat ante te filius tuus parvus, ut eum leves in equum tuum: numquid audis? numquid exaudis? Durus es, an potius misericors? Quid est, dic mihi, quo consilio facis? Certe hoc consilium est charitatis, quis dubitet? Cui grandi servas totam domum, parvulum plorantem non levas in equum. Omnia quae habes, et domum et quidquid in domo, et agrum et quidquid in agro, illi servas; et tamen in equum non levas parvulum plorantem. Ploret quantum vult, tota die ploret; non exaudis, et misericordia non exaudis, et si exaudires, crudelis esses.