When dealing with your own troubles, you should feel only as much sadness as makes sense — not as much as society expects. Many people cry just for show. When no one is watching, their eyes are dry. But they think it would be shameful not to weep when everyone else does. This disease of living by other people's opinions has taken such deep root in us that even grief — the most natural of all feelings — becomes fake.
In one's own misfortunes, also, one ought so to conduct oneself as to bestow upon them just as much sorrow as reason, not as much as custom requires: for many shed tears in order to show them, and whenever no one is looking at them their eyes are dry, but they think it disgraceful not to weep when every one does so. So deeply has this evil of being guided by the opinion of others taken root in us, that even grief, the simplest of all emotions, begins to be counterfeited.