Letter 81

[1] You complain that you have run into an ungrateful man. If this is the first time, give thanks either to your luck or to your care. But here care can accomplish nothing except to make you mean-spirited; for if you want to avoid this danger, you will give no benefits at all—and so, to keep them from being lost upon another, they will be lost upon you. Better that they go unanswered than ungiven; and even after a bad harvest one must sow again. Often a single year's abundance has restored whatever had perished through the persistent barrenness of an unproductive soil. [2] It is worth it, in order to find one grateful man, to make trial even of the ungrateful. No one has so sure a hand in conferring benefits that he is not often deceived; let men go astray, so that now and then they may hold to the path. After a shipwreck the seas are tried again; the bankrupt does not drive the moneylender from the forum. Life will quickly grow torpid in idle sloth if everything that gives offense must be abandoned. Let this very experience make you more generous; for when the outcome of a thing is uncertain, it must be attempted often so that it may at last succeed. [3] But I have said enough about this in those books that are entitled On Benefits. What seems more worth examining is a point that has not, I think, been sufficiently worked out: whether the man who has been of use to us, if he has afterward done us harm, has made the account even and discharged us of our debt. Add this too, if you like: that he afterward did much more harm than the good he had earlier done. [4] If you ask for the upright verdict of a strict judge, he will acquit one act by the other and declare: "Although the injuries weigh more, still let what remains over from the injury be credited to the benefits." The harm was greater, but the help came first; and so account must be taken of the timing as well. [5] By now those other points are too plain for you to need reminding—that one must ask how willingly the help was given, how unwillingly the harm was done—since both benefits and injuries reside in the intention. "I did not wish to give the benefit; I was overcome either by shame, or by the persistence of the man who pressed me, or by hope." [6] Each thing is owed in the spirit in which it is given; what is weighed is not how great it was but from what kind of will it proceeded. Now let conjecture be set aside: that earlier act was a benefit, and this later one, which exceeded the measure of the earlier benefit, is an injury. The good man so sets out the two reckonings that he cheats himself: he adds to the benefit, he subtracts from the injury. That more lenient judge—the one I would rather be—will bid us forget the injury and remember the service. [7] "But surely," you say, "this accords with justice: to render to each his own—thanks for a benefit, retaliation for an injury, or at least ill will." That will be true when one man has done the injury and another has given the benefit; for if it is the same man, the force of the injury is extinguished by the benefit. For a man who ought to be pardoned even if no merits had gone before deserves, when he does harm after his benefits, more than mere forgiveness. [8] I do not set an equal price on the two: I value a benefit more highly than an injury. Not everyone knows how to be grateful; but even a man who is thoughtless and untaught and one of the crowd can know that he owes for a benefit, at least while it is fresh from the receiving, though he does not know how much he owes for it. Only to the wise man is it known what each thing should be assessed at. For that fool I spoke of just now, even if his intentions are good, returns either less than he owes, or at the wrong time, or in the wrong place; he pours out and throws away the very thing that ought to be repaid. [9] In certain matters the precision of words is remarkable, and the usage of old speech marks out some things with signs that are most effective and that teach us our duties. This, certainly, is how we customarily speak: "He returned the favor (gratiam rettulit) to that man." To return (referre) is to bring back of your own accord what you owe. We do not say "he paid back the favor" (gratiam reddidit); for those who pay back (reddunt) are those who are dunned for payment, those who pay unwillingly, those who pay anywhere at all, and those who pay through another. We do not say "he repaid (reposuit) the benefit" or "he settled (solvit) it": no word that suits a money-debt has pleased us. [10] To return (referre) is to carry the thing back to the one from whom you received it. This word signifies a voluntary returning: the man who has returned has summoned himself to it. The wise man will weigh everything within himself—how much he received, from whom, why, when, where, in what manner. And so we deny that anyone but the wise man knows how to return a favor, just as no one but the wise man knows how to give a benefit—that is, the man who rejoices more in giving than another does in receiving. [11] Someone counts this among those statements we seem to make contrary to everyone's expectation (the Greeks call them paradoxes) and says: "So no one but the wise man knows how to return a favor? Then no one else knows how to pay back to his creditor what he owes, nor, when he buys some thing, to pay the price to the seller?" So that no odium fall upon us, know that Epicurus says the same thing. Metrodorus, certainly, declares that only the wise man knows how to return a favor. [12] Then this same person wonders when we say, "Only the wise man knows how to love, only the wise man is a friend." And yet returning a favor is a part of love and of friendship—indeed this is more common and falls to more people than true friendship does. Then this same person wonders that we say loyalty (fides) exists only in the wise man, as though he himself did not say the same. Or does it seem to you that a man has loyalty who does not know how to return a favor? [13] Let them, then, stop defaming us as though we boast of incredible things, and let them recognize that in the wise man are the honorable things themselves, while in the crowd are only the images and likenesses of honorable things. No one but the wise man knows how to return a favor. Let the fool too return it, as best he knows how and as he can; it is knowledge rather than will that he lacks: willing is not something learned. [14] The wise man will compare all things with one another; for a thing becomes greater or smaller, though it be the same thing, by reason of time, place, and cause. Often riches poured into a house have not been able to do what a thousand denarii given at the right moment could. For it makes a great difference whether you have made a gift or come to the rescue, whether your generosity saved a man or set him up; often what is given is small, but what follows from it is great. And how great a difference do you suppose there is between someone who takes from himself what he is to give, and one who receives a benefit in order to give it? [15] But let me not roll back into the same matters I have sufficiently examined. In this comparison of benefit and injury the good man will indeed judge what is most fair, but he will favor the benefit; he will be more inclined toward that side. [16] In matters of this kind the person involved usually carries the greatest weight: "You gave me a benefit in the matter of a slave, you did me an injury in the matter of my father; you saved my son for me, but you took away my father." He will then pursue the other points through which every comparison proceeds, and if the difference is trivial, he will pretend not to see it; even if it is great, yet if it can be forgiven without loss of devotion and loyalty, he will let it go—that is, if the whole injury concerns himself alone. [17] The sum of the matter is this: he will be easygoing in striking the balance; he will let too much be charged against himself; he will be unwilling to discharge a benefit by setting an injury against it; he will lean to this side, incline this way, so that he longs to owe gratitude, longs to return it. For a man is mistaken if he receives a benefit more gladly than he repays it: by as much as he who pays is more cheerful than he who borrows, by so much ought he who unburdens himself of the greatest debt—a benefit received—to be happier than the man who is most deeply put under obligation. [18] For the ungrateful go wrong in this too: to a creditor they do count out, beyond the principal and in due course, more than is owed, but they suppose that the use of benefits is free of charge—and meanwhile those debts grow with delay, and the more is to be paid the later it is paid. He is ungrateful who repays a benefit without interest; so account will be taken of this matter too, when receipts and outlays are compared. [19] Everything must be done so that we may be as grateful as possible. For this is a good that belongs to us, in the way that justice—which, as people commonly believe, concerns others—does not: a great part of gratitude returns into itself. There is no one who, in benefiting another, has not benefited himself—and I do not mean for the reason that the man you helped will want to help you, or that the man you protected will want to protect you, or that a good example returns by a circuit to its author (just as bad examples recoil upon their authors, and no pity is shown to those who suffer the very injuries they have taught, by doing them, that it is possible to commit)—but rather because the reward of all the virtues lies in the virtues themselves. For they are not practiced for a prize: to have done rightly is the wage of doing right. [20] I am grateful not so that another, prompted by my prior example, may serve me more willingly, but so that I may do a most delightful and most beautiful thing; I am grateful not because it profits me, but because it pleases me. That you may know this is so: if I shall not be allowed to be grateful except by seeming ungrateful, if I shall be able to repay a benefit only under the appearance of an injury, then with the most untroubled mind I will press on toward the honorable course straight through the midst of infamy. No one seems to me to value virtue more highly, no one to be more devoted to it, than the man who has lost the reputation of a good man so as not to lose his conscience. [21] And so, as I said, you are grateful more for your own good than for another's; for to him a common, everyday thing has happened—to get back what he had given—but to you a great thing, proceeding from the most blessed state of mind: to have been grateful. For if malice makes men wretched and virtue makes them blessed, and being grateful is a virtue, then you have returned an ordinary thing but obtained one beyond price—the consciousness of gratitude, which comes only to a mind that is divine and fortunate. The contrary feeling to this, however, is pressed by the utmost misery: no one is grateful to himself who has not been grateful to another. Do you think I mean this—that the ungrateful man will be wretched? I grant him no delay: he is wretched at once. [22] Let us therefore shun being ungrateful, not for another's sake but for our own. The smallest and lightest part of wickedness overflows onto others; what is worst in it, and, so to speak, thickest, stays at home and weighs upon its possessor, as our Attalus [Seneca's Stoic teacher] used to say: "Malice herself drinks the greatest part of her own poison." That poison which serpents put forth for the destruction of others, while keeping it within without harm to themselves, is not like this poison: this is worst for those who possess it. [23] The ungrateful man tortures and frets himself; he hates what he has received, because he must return it, and he belittles it, but he stretches out and magnifies the injuries. And what is more wretched than the man from whom benefits slip away while injuries cling? But wisdom, by contrast, adorns every benefit and commends it to herself, and delights in its constant recollection. [24] The wicked have but one pleasure, and a brief one, while they are receiving benefits; from these the wise man keeps a long and lasting joy. For it is not receiving but having received that delights him—which is undying and constant. He despises the things by which he was hurt, and forgets them not through carelessness but by choice. [25] He does not turn everything to the worse, nor look for someone to charge with a mishap, and he refers men's faults rather to chance. He does not put a slanderous construction on words or looks; whatever happens, he lightens it by interpreting it kindly. He remembers a service rather than an offense; as far as he can he keeps himself in the earlier and better memory, nor does he change his mind toward those who have deserved well unless their bad deeds far precede their good, and the disparity is plain even to one who shuts his eyes—and even then only to this extent, that after the greater injury he becomes such as he was before the benefit. For when the injury is equal to the benefit, some goodwill remains in the mind. [26] Just as a defendant is acquitted when the votes are equal, and humane feeling always inclines whatever is doubtful toward the better side, so the mind of the wise man, when merits are equal to wrongs, ceases indeed to owe, but does not cease to wish to owe, and does what those do who pay up after a cancellation of debts. [27] But no one can be grateful who has not scorned those things over which the crowd goes mad: if you wish to return a favor, you must be ready to go into exile, and to pour out your blood, and to take up poverty, and often even to let your very innocence be stained and exposed to unworthy rumors. A grateful man costs himself no small price. [28] We value nothing more dearly than a benefit so long as we are seeking it, nothing more cheaply once we have received it. Do you ask what it is that makes us forget what we have received? It is the craving to receive more; we think not of what has been obtained but of what is to be sought. Riches, honors, power, and the other things that are precious in our opinion but worthless at their true price draw us away from the right course. [29] We do not know how to assess things, about which we ought to deliberate not with reputation but with the nature of things; those things have nothing magnificent to draw our minds to them except this, that we are accustomed to marvel at them. For they are not praised because they ought to be desired, but they are desired because they have been praised; and when the error of individuals has made a public error, the public error in turn makes the error of individuals. [30] But just as we have believed those things, so let us believe this too from the same people: that nothing is more honorable than a grateful mind. All cities, all peoples even from barbarian regions, will cry this aloud together; on this the good and the bad will agree. [31] There will be those who praise pleasures, those who prefer toils; there will be those who call pain the greatest evil, those who do not even call it an evil; one man will admit riches into the highest good, another will say they were discovered to the harm of human life, and that no one is wealthier than the man for whom Fortune finds nothing to give: amid so great a diversity of judgments, all will affirm to you with one voice, as they say, that gratitude is to be returned to those who have deserved well. On this point so discordant a crowd will agree—while in the meantime we repay injuries in place of benefits, and the first reason why a man is ungrateful is that he could not be grateful enough. [32] Madness has been carried so far that it is a most dangerous thing to confer great benefits on anyone; for because he thinks it shameful not to repay, he does not want anyone alive to whom he must repay. "Keep for yourself what you have received; I do not ask it back, I do not demand it: let it have been safe to be of use." There is no hatred more ruinous than that which springs from shame at a benefit violated. Farewell.

You complain that you have met with an ungrateful person. If this is your first experience of that sort, you should offer thanks either to your good luck or to your caution. In this case, however, caution can effect nothing but to make you ungenerous. For if you wish to avoid such a danger, you will not confer benefits; and so, that benefits may not be lost with another man, they will be lost to yourself. It is better, however, to get no return than to confer no benefits. Even after a poor crop one should sow again; for often losses due to continued barrenness of an unproductive soil have been made good by one year's fertility. In order to discover one grateful person, it is worth while to make trial of many ungrateful ones. No man has so unerring a hand when he confers benefits that he is not frequently deceived; it is well for the traveller to wander, that he may again cleave to the path. After a shipwreck, sailors try the sea again. The banker is not frightened away from the forum by the swindler. If one were compelled to drop everything that caused trouble, life would soon grow dull amid sluggish idleness; but in your case this very condition may prompt you to become more charitable. For when the outcome of any undertaking is unsure, you must try again and again, in order to succeed ultimately. I have, however, discussed the matter with sufficient fulness in the volumes which I have written, entitled “On Benefits.” What I think should rather be investigated is this,—a question which I feel has not been made sufficiently clear: "Whether he who has helped us has squared the account and has freed us from our debt, if he has done us harm later." You may add this question also, if you like: “when the harm done later has been more than the help rendered previously.” If you are seeking for the formal and just decision of a strict judge, you will find that he checks off one act by the other, and declares: “Though the injuries outweigh the benefits, yet we should credit to the benefits anything that stands over even after the injury.” The harm done was indeed greater, but the helpful act was done first. Hence the time also should be taken into account. Other cases are so clear that I need not remind you that you should also look into such points as: How gladly was the help offered, and how reluctantly was the harm done,—since benefits, as well as injuries, depend on the spirit. “I did not wish to confer the benefit; but I was won over by my respect for the man, or by the importunity of his request, or by hope.” Our feeling about every obligation depends in each case upon the spirit in which the benefit is conferred; we weigh not the bulk of the gift, but the quality of the good-will which prompted it. So now let us do away with guess-work; the former deed was a benefit, and the latter, which transcended the earlier benefit, is an injury. The good man so arranges the two sides of his ledger that he voluntarily cheats himself by adding to the benefit and subtracting from the injury. The more indulgent magistrate, however (and I should rather be such a one), will order us to forget the injury and remember the accommodation. “But surely,” you say, “it is the part of justice to render to each that which is his due,—thanks in return for a benefit, and retribution, or at any rate ill-will, in return for an injury!” This, I say, will be true when it is one man who has inflicted the injury, and a different man who has conferred the benefit; for if it is the same man, the force of the injury is nullified by the benefit conferred. Indeed, a man who ought to be pardoned, even though there were no good deeds credited to him in the past, should receive something more than mere leniency if he commits a wrong when he has a benefit to his credit. I do not set an equal value on benefits and injuries. I reckon a benefit at a higher rate than an injury. Not all grateful persons know what it involves to be in debt for a benefit; even a thoughtless, crude fellow, one of the common herd, may know, especially soon after he has received the gift; but he does not know how deeply he stands in debt therefor. Only the wise man knows exactly what value should be put upon everything; for the fool whom I just mentioned, no matter how good his intentions may be, either pays less than he owes, or pays it at the wrong time or the wrong place. That for which he should make return he wastes and loses. There is a marvellously accurate phraseology applied to certain subjects, a long-established terminology which indicates certain acts by means of symbols that are most efficient and that serve to outline men’s duties. We are, as you know, wont to speak thus: “A. has made a return for the favour bestowed by B.” Making a return means handing over of your own accord that which you owe. We do not say, “He has paid back the favour”; for “pay back” is used of a man upon whom a demand for payment is made, of those who pay against their will, of those who pay under any circumstances whatsoever, and of those who pay through a third party. We do not say, “He has ‘restored’ the benefit,” or ‘settled’ it; we have never been satisfied with a word which applies properly to a debt of money. Making a return means offering something to him from whom you have received something. The phrase implies a voluntary return; he who has made such a return has served the writ upon himself. The wise man will inquire in his own mind into all the circumstances: how much he has received, from whom, when, where, how. And so we declare that none but the wise man knows how to make return for a favour; moreover, none but the wise man knows how to confer a benefit,—that man, I mean, who enjoys the giving more than the recipient enjoys the receiving. Now some person will reckon this remark as one of the generally surprising statements such as we Stoics are wont to make and such as the Greeks call “paradoxes,” and will say: “Do you maintain, then, that only the wise man knows how to return a favour? Do you maintain that no one else knows how to make restoration to a creditor for a debt? Or, on buying a commodity, to pay full value to the seller?” In order not to bring any odium upon myself, let me tell you that Epicurus says the same thing. At any rate, Metrodorus remarks that only the wise man knows how to return a favour. Again, the objector mentioned above wonders at our saying: “The wise man alone knows how to love, the wise man alone is a real friend.” And yet it is a part of love and of friendship to return favours; nay, further, it is an ordinary act, and happens more frequently than real friendship. Again, this same objector wonders at our saying, “There is no loyalty except in the wise man,” just as if he himself does not say the same thing! Or do you think that there is any loyalty in him who does not know how to return a favour? These men, accordingly, should cease to discredit us, just as if we were uttering an impossible boast; they should understand that the essence of honour resides in the wise man, while among the crowd we find only the ghost and the semblance of honour. None but the wise man knows how to return a favour. Even a fool can return it in proportion to his knowledge and his power; his fault would be a lack of knowledge rather than a lack of will or desire. To will does not come by teaching. The wise man will compare all things with one another; for the very same object becomes greater or smaller, according to the time, the place, and the cause. Often the riches that are spent in profusion upon a palace cannot accomplish as much as a thousand denarii given at the right time. Now it makes a great deal of difference whether you give outright, or come to a man’s assistance, whether your generosity saves him, or sets him up in life. Often the gift is small, but the consequences great. And what a distinction do you imagine there is between taking something which one lacks,—something which was offered,—and receiving a benefit in order to confer one in return? But we should not slip back into the subject which we have already sufficiently investigated. In this balancing of benefits and injuries, the good man will, to be sure, judge with the highest degree of fairness, but he will incline towards the side of the benefit; he will turn more readily in this direction. Moreover, in affairs of this kind the person concerned is wont to count for a great deal. Men say: “You conferred a benefit upon me in that matter of the slave, but you did me an injury in the case of my father” or, “You saved my son, but robbed me of a father.” Similarly, he will follow up all other matters in which comparisons can be made, and if the difference be very slight, he will pretend not to notice it. Even though the difference be great, yet if the concession can be made without impairment of duty and loyalty, our good man will overlook it—that is, provided the injury exclusively affects the good man himself. To sum up, the matter stands thus: the good man will be easy-going in striking a balance; he will allow too much to be set against his credit. He will be unwilling to pay a benefit by balancing the injury against it. The side towards which he will lean, the tendency which he will exhibit, is the desire to be under obligations for the favour, and the desire to make return therefor. For anyone who receives a benefit more gladly than he repays it is mistaken. By as much as he who pays is more light-hearted than he who borrows, by so much ought he to be more joyful who unburdens himself of the greatest debt—a benefit received—than he who incurs the greatest obligations. For ungrateful men make mistakes in this respect also: they have to pay their creditors both capital and interest, but they think that benefits are currency which they can use without interest. So the debts grow through postponement, and the later the action is postponed the more remains to be paid. A man is an ingrate if he repays a favour without interest. Therefore, interest also should be allowed for, when you compare your receipts and your expenses. We should try by all means to be as grateful as possible. For gratitude is a good thing for ourselves, in a sense in which justice, that is commonly supposed to concern other persons, is not; gratitude returns in large measure unto itself. There is not a man who, when he has benefited his neighbour, has not benefited himself,—I do not mean for the reason that he whom you have aided will desire to aid you, or that he whom you have defended will desire to protect you, or that an example of good conduct returns in a circle to benefit the doer, just as examples of bad conduct recoil upon their authors, and as men find no pity if they suffer wrongs which they themselves have demonstrated the possibility of committing; but that the reward for all the virtues lies in the virtues themselves. For they are not practised with a view to recompense; the wages of a good deed is to have done it. I am grateful, not in order that my neighbour, provoked by the earlier act of kindness, may be more ready to benefit me, but simply in order that I may perform a most pleasant and beautiful act; I feel grateful, not because it profits me, but because it pleases me. And, to prove the truth of this to you, I declare that even if I may not be grateful without seeming ungrateful, even if I am able to return a benefit only by an act which resembles an injury; even so, I shall strive in the utmost calmness of spirit toward the purpose which honour demands, in the very midst of disgrace. No one, I think, rates virtue higher or is more consecrated to virtue than he who has lost his reputation for being a good man in order to keep from losing the approval of his conscience. Thus, as I have said, your being grateful is more conducive to your own good than to your neighbour’s good. For while your neighbour has had a common, everyday experience,—namely, receiving back the gift which he had bestowed,—you have had a great experience which is the outcome of an utterly happy condition of soul,—to have felt gratitude. For if wickedness makes men unhappy and virtue makes men blest, and if it is a virtue to be grateful, then the return which you have made is only the customary thing, but the thing to which you have attained is priceless,—the consciousness of gratitude, which comes only to the soul that is divine and blessed. The opposite feeling to this, however, is immediately attended by the greatest unhappiness; no man, if he be ungrateful, will be unhappy in the future. I allow him no day of grace; he is unhappy forthwith. Let us therefore avoid being ungrateful, not for the sake of others but for our own sakes. When we do wrong, only the least and lightest portion of it flows back upon our neighbour; the worst and, if I may use the term, the densest portion of it stays at home and troubles the owner. My master Attalus used to say: “Evil herself drinks the largest portion of her own poison.” The poison which serpents carry for the destruction of others, and secrete without harm to themselves, is not like this poison; for this sort is ruinous to the possessor. The ungrateful man tortures and torments himself; he hates the gifts which he has accepted, because he must make a return for them, and he tries to belittle their value, but he really enlarges and exaggerates the injuries which he has received. And what is more wretched than a man who forgets his benefits and clings to his injuries? Wisdom, on the other hand, lends grace to every benefit, and of her own free will commends it to her own favour, and delights her soul by continued recollection thereof. Evil men have but one pleasure in benefits, and a very short-lived pleasure at that; it lasts only while they are receiving them. But the wise man derives therefrom an abiding and eternal joy. For he takes delight not so much in receiving the gift as in having received it; and this joy never perishes; it abides with him always. He despises the wrongs done him; he forgets them, not accidentally, but voluntarily. He does not put a wrong construction upon everything, or seek for someone whom he may hold responsible for each happening; he rather ascribes even the sins of men to chance. He will not misinterpret a word or a look; he makes light of all mishaps by interpreting them in a generous way. He does not remember an injury rather than a service. As far as possible, he lets his memory rest upon the earlier and the better deed, never changing his attitude towards those who have deserved well of him, except in cases where the bad deeds far outdistance the good, and the space between them is obvious even to one who closes his eyes to it; even then only to this extent, that he strives, after receiving the preponderant injury, to resume the attitude which he held before he received the benefit. For when the injury merely equals the benefit, a certain amount of kindly feeling is left over. Just as a defendant is acquitted when the votes are equal, and just as the spirit of kindliness always tries to bend every doubtful case toward the better interpretation, so the mind of the wise man, when another’s merits merely equal his bad deeds, will, to be sure, cease to feel an obligation, but does not cease to desire to feel it, and acts precisely like the man who pays his debts even after they have been legally cancelled. But no man can be grateful unless he has learned to scorn the things which drive the common herd to distraction; if you wish to make return for a favour, you must be willing to go into exile, or to pour forth your blood, or to undergo poverty, or—and this will frequently happen,—even to let your very innocence be stained and exposed to shameful slanders. It is no slight price that a man must pay for being grateful. We hold nothing dearer than a benefit, so long as we are seeking one; we hold nothing cheaper after we have received it. Do you ask what it is that makes us forget benefits received? It is our extreme greed for receiving others. We consider not what we have obtained, but what we are to seek. We are deflected from the right course by riches, titles, power, and everything which is valuable in our opinion but worthless when rated at its real value. We do not know how to weigh matters; we should take counsel regarding them, not with their reputation but with their nature; those things possess no grandeur wherewith to enthral our minds, except the fact that we have become accustomed to marvel at them. For they are not praised because they ought to be desired, but they are desired because they have been praised; and when the error of individuals has once created error on the part of the public, then the public error goes on creating error on the part of individuals. But just as we take on faith such estimates of values, so let us take on the faith of the people this truth, that nothing is more honourable than a grateful heart. This phrase will be echoed by all cities, and by all races, even those from savage countries. Upon this point good and bad will agree. Some praise pleasure, some prefer toil; some say that pain is the greatest of evils, some say it is no evil at all; some will include riches in the Supreme Good, others will say that their discovery meant harm to the human race, and that none is richer than he to whom Fortune has found nothing to give. Amid all this diversity of opinion all men will yet with one voice, as the saying is, vote “aye” to the proposition that thanks should be returned to those who have deserved well of us. On this question the common herd, rebellious as they are, will all agree, but at present we keep paying back injuries instead of benefits, and the primary reason why a man is ungrateful is that he has found it impossible to be grateful enough. Our madness has gone to such lengths that it is a very dangerous thing to confer great benefits upon a person; for just because he thinks it shameful not to repay, so he would have none left alive whom he should repay. “Keep for yourself what you have received; I do not ask it back; I do not demand it. Let it be safe to have conferred a favour.” There is no worse hatred than that which springs from shame at the desecration of a benefit. Farewell.

[1] Quereris incidisse te in hominem ingratum: si hoc nunc primum, age aut fortunae aut diligentiae tuae gratias. Sed nihil facere hoc loco diligentia potest nisi te malignum; nam si hoc periculum vitare volueris, non dabis beneficia; ita ne apud alium pereant, apud te peribunt. Non respondeant potius quam non dentur: et post malam segetem serendum est. Saepe quidquid perierat adsidua infelicis soli sterilitate unius anni restituit ubertas. [2] Est tanti, ut gratum invenias, experiri et ingratos. Nemo habet tam certam in beneficiis manum ut non saepe fallatur: aberrent, ut aliquando haereant. Post naufragium maria temptantur; feneratorem non fugat a foro coctor. Cito inerti otio vita torpebit, si relinquendum est quidquid offendit. Te vero benigniorem haec ipsa res faciat; nam cuius rei eventus incertus est, id ut aliquando procedat saepe temptandum est. [3] Sed de isto satis multa in iis libris locuti sumus qui de beneficiis inscribuntur: illud magis quaerendum videtur, quod non satis, ut existimo, explicatum est, an is qui profuit nobis, si postea nocuit, paria fecerit et nos debito solverit. Adice, si vis, et illud: multo plus postea nocuit quam ante profuerat. [4] Si rectam illam rigidi iudicis sententiam quaeris, alterum ab altero absolvet et dicet, 'quamvis iniuriae praeponderent, tamen beneficiis donetur quod ex iniuria superest'. Plus nocuit, sed prius profuit; itaque habeatur et temporis ratio. [5] Iam illa manifestiora sunt quam ut admoneri debeas quaerendum esse quam libenter profuerit, quam invitus nocuerit, quoniam animo et beneficia et iniuriae constant. 'Nolui beneficium dare; victus sum aut verecundia aut instantis pertinacia aut spe.' [6] Eo animo quidque debetur quo datur, nec quantum sit sed a quali profectum voluntate perpenditur. Nunc coniectura tollatur: et illud beneficium fuit et hoc, quod modum beneficii prioris excessit, iniuria est. Vir bonus utrosque calculos sic ponit ut se ipse circumscribat: beneficio adicit, iniuriae demit. Alter ille remissior iudex, quem esse me malo, iniuriae oblivisci iubebit, officii meminisse. [7] 'Hoc certe' inquis 'iustitiae convenit, suum cuique reddere, beneficio gratiam, iniuriae talionem aut certe malam gratiam.' Verum erit istud cum alius iniuriam fecerit, alius beneficium dederit; nam si idem est, beneficio vis iniuriae extinguitur. Nam cui, etiam si merita non antecessissent, oportebat ignosci, post beneficia laedenti plus quam venia debetur. [8] Non pono utrique par pretium: pluris aestimo beneficium quam iniuriam. Non omnes esse grati sciunt: debere beneficium potest etiam inprudens et rudis et unus e turba, utique dum prope est ab accepto, ignorat autem quantum pro eo debeat. Uni sapienti notum est quanti res quaeque taxanda sit. Nam ille de quo loquebar modo stultus, etiam si bonae voluntatis est, aut minus quam debet aut <alio quam debet> tempore aut quo non debet loco reddit; id quod referendum est effundit atque abicit. [9] Mira in quibusdam rebus verborum proprietas est, et consuetudo sermonis antiqui quaedam efficacissimis et officia docentibus notis signat. Sic certe solemus loqui: 'ille illi gratiam rettulit'. Referre est ultro quod debeas adferre. Non dicimus 'gratiam reddidit'; reddunt enim et qui reposcuntur et qui inviti et qui ubilibet et qui per alium. Non dicimus 'reposuit beneficium' aut 'solvit': nullum nobis placuit quod aeri alieno convenit verbum. [10] Referre est ad eum a quo acceperis rem ferre. Haec vox significat voluntariam relationem: qui rettulit, ipse se appellavit. Sapiens omnia examinabit secum, quantum acceperit, a quo, <quare,> quando, ubi, quemadmodum. Itaque negamus quemquam scire gratiam referre nisi sapientem, non magis quam beneficium dare quisquam scit nisi sapiens -- hic scilicet qui magis dato gaudet quam alius accepto. [11] Hoc aliquis inter illa numerat quae videmur inopinata omnibus dicere (paradoxa Graeci vocant) et ait, 'nemo ergo scit praeter sapientem referre gratiam? ergo nec quod debet creditori suo reponere quisquam scit alius nec, cum emit aliquam rem, pretium venditori persolvere?' <Ne> nobis fiat invidia, scito idem dicere Epicurum. Metrodorus certe ait solum sapientem referre gratiam scire. [12] Deinde idem admiratur cum dicimus, 'solus sapiens scit amare, solus sapiens amicus est'. Atqui et amoris et amicitiae pars est referre gratiam, immo hoc magis vulgare est et in plures cadit quam vera amicitia. Deinde idem admiratur quod dicimus fidem nisi in sapiente non esse, tamquam non ipse idem dicat. An tibi videtur fidem habere qui referre gratiam nescit? [13] Desinant itaque infamare nos tamquam incredibilia iactantes et sciant apud sapientem esse ipsa honesta, apud vulgum simulacra rerum honestarum et effigies. Nemo referre gratiam scit nisi sapiens. Stultus quoque, utcumque scit et quemadmodum potest, referat; scientia illi potius quam voluntas desit: velle non discitur. [14] Sapiens omnia inter se comparabit; maius enim aut minus fit, quamvis idem sit, tempore, loco, causa. Saepe enim hoc <non> potuere divitiae in domum infusae quod opportune dati mille denarii. Multum enim interest donaveris an succurreris, servaverit illum tua liberalitas an instruxerit; saepe quod datur exiguum est, quod sequitur ex eo magnum. Quantum autem existimas interesse utrum aliquis quod daret a se [quod praestabat] sumpserit an beneficium acceperit ut daret? [15] Sed ne in eadem quae satis scrutati sumus revolvamur, in hac comparatione beneficii et iniuriae vir bonus iudicabit quidem quod erit aequissimum, sed beneficio favebit; in hanc erit partem proclivior. [16] Plurimum autem momenti persona solet adferre in rebus eiusmodi: 'dedisti mihi beneficium in servo, iniuriam fecisti in patre; servasti mihi filium, sed patrem abstulisti'. Alia deinceps per quae procedit omnis conlatio prosequetur, et si pusillum erit quod intersit, dissimulabit; etiam si multum fuerit, sed si id donari salva pietate ac fide poterit, remittet, id est si ad ipsum tota pertinebit iniuria. [17] Summa rei haec est: facilis erit in commutando; patietur plus inputari sibi; invitus beneficium per compensationem iniuriae solvet; in hanc partem inclinabit, huc verget, ut cupiat debere gratiam, cupiat referre. Errat enim si quis beneficium accipit libentius quam reddit: quanto hilarior est qui solvit quam qui mutuatur, tanto debet laetior esse qui se maximo aere alieno accepti benefici exonerat quam qui cum maxime obligatur. [18] Nam in hoc quoque falluntur ingrati, quod creditori quidem praeter sortem extra ordinem numerant, beneficiorum autem usum esse gratuitum putant: et illa crescunt mora tantoque plus solvendum est quanto tardius. Ingratus est qui beneficium reddit sine usura; itaque huius quoque rei habebitur ratio, cum conferentur accepta et expensa. [19] Omnia facienda sunt ut quam gratissimi simus. Nostrum enim hoc bonum est, quemadmodum iustitia non est (ut vulgo creditur) ad alios pertinens: magna pars eius in se redit. Nemo non, cum alteri prodest, sibi profuit, non eo nomine dico, quod volet adiuvare adiutus, protegere defensus, quod bonum exemplum circuitu ad facientem revertitur (sicut mala exempla recidunt in auctores nec ulla miseratio contingit iis qui patiuntur iniurias quas posse fieri faciendo docuerunt), sed quod virtutum omnium pretium in ipsis est. Non enim exercentur ad praemium: recte facti fecisse merces est. [20] Gratus sum non ut alius mihi libentius praestet priori inritatus exemplo, sed ut rem iucundissimam ac pulcherrimam faciam; gratus sum non quia expedit, sed quia iuvat. Hoc ut scias ita esse, si gratum esse non licebit nisi ut videar ingratus, si reddere beneficium non aliter quam per speciem iniuriae potero, aequissimo animo ad honestum consilium per mediam infamiam tendam. Nemo mihi videtur pluris aestimare virtutem, nemo illi magis esse devotus quam qui boni viri famam perdidit ne conscientiam perderet. [21] Itaque, ut dixi, maiore tuo quam alterius bono gratus es; illi enim vulgaris et cotidiana res contigit, recipere quod dederat, tibi magna et ex beatissimo animi statu profecta, gratum fuisse. Nam si malitia miseros facit, virtus beatos, gratum autem esse virtus est, rem usitatam reddidisti, inaestimabilem consecutus es, conscientiam grati, quae nisi in animum divinum fortunatumque non pervenit. [In] Contrarium autem huic adfectum summa infelicitas urget: nemo sibi gratus est qui alteri non fuit. Hoc me putas dicere, qui ingratus est miser erit? non differo illum: statim miser est. [22] Itaque ingrati esse vitemus non aliena causa sed nostra. Minimum ex nequitia levissimumque ad alios redundat: quod pessimum ex illa est et, ut ita dicam, spississimum, domi remanet et premit habentem, quemadmodum Attalus noster dicere solebat, 'malitia ipsa maximam partem veneni sui bibit'. Illud venenum quod serpentes in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine sua continent, non est huic simile: hoc habentibus pessimum est. [23] Torquet se ingratus et macerat; odit quae accepit, quia redditurus est, et extenuat, iniurias vero dilatat atque auget. Quid autem eo miserius cui beneficia excidunt, haerent iniuriae? At contra sapientia exornat omne beneficium ac sibi ipsa commendat et se adsidua eius commemoratione delectat. [24] Malis una voluptas est et haec brevis, dum accipiunt beneficia, ex quibus sapienti longum gaudium manet ac perenne. Non enim illum accipere sed accepisse delectat, quod inmortale est et adsiduum. Illa contemnit quibus laesus est, nec obliviscitur per neglegentiam sed volens. [25] Non vertit omnia in peius nec quaerit cui inputet casum, et peccata hominum ad fortunam potius refert. Non calumniatur verba nec vultus; quidquid accidit benigne interpretando levat. Non offensae potius quam offici meminit; quantum potest in priore ac meliore se memoria detinet, nec mutat animum adversus bene meritos nisi multum male facta praecedunt et manifestum etiam coniventi discrimen est; tunc quoque in hoc dumtaxat, ut talis sit post maiorem iniuriam qualis ante beneficium. Nam cum beneficio par est iniuria, aliquid in animo benivolentiae remanet. [26] Quemadmodum reus sententiis paribus absolvitur et semper quidquid dubium est humanitas inclinat in melius, sic animus sapientis, ubi paria maleficiis merita sunt, desinit quidem debere, sed non desinit velle debere, et hoc facit quod qui post tabulas novas solvunt. [27] Nemo autem esse gratus potest nisi contempsit ista propter quae vulgus insanit: si referre vis gratiam, et in exilium eundum est et effundendus sanguis et suscipienda egestas et ipsa innocentia saepe maculanda indignisque obicienda rumoribus. Non parvo sibi constat homo gratus. [28] Nihil carius aestimamus quam beneficium quamdiu petimus, nihil vilius cum accepimus. Quaeris quid sit quod oblivionem nobis acceptorum faciat? cupiditas accipiendorum; cogitamus non quid inpetratum sed quid petendum sit. Abstrahunt a recto divitiae, honores, potentia et cetera quae opinione nostra cara sunt, pretio suo vilia. [29] Nescimus aestimare res, de quibus non cum fama sed cum rerum natura deliberandum est; nihil habent ista magnificum quo mentes in se nostras trahant praeter hoc, quod mirari illa consuevimus. Non enim quia concupiscenda sunt laudantur, sed concupiscuntur quia laudata sunt, et cum singulorum error publicum fecerit, singulorum errorem facit publicus. [30] Sed quemadmodum illa credidimus, sic et hoc eidem populo credamus, nihil esse grato animo honestius; omnes hoc urbes, omnes etiam ex barbaris regionibus gentes conclamabunt; in hoc bonis malisque conveniet. [31] Erunt qui voluptates laudent, erunt qui labores malint; erunt qui dolorem maximum malum dicant, erunt qui ne malum quidem appellent; divitias aliquis ad summum bonum admittet, alius illas dicet malo vitae humanae repertas, nihil esse eo locupletius cui quod donet fortuna non invenit: in tanta iudiciorum diversitate referendam bene merentibus gratiam omnes tibi uno, quod aiunt, ore adfirmabunt. In hoc tam discors turba consentiet, cum interim iniurias pro beneficiis reddimus, et prima causa est cur quis ingratus sit si satis gratus esse non potuit. [32] Eo perductus est furor ut periculosissima res sit beneficia in aliquem magna conferre; nam quia putat turpe non reddere, non vult esse cui reddat. Tibi habe quod accepisti; non repeto, non exigo: profuisse tutum sit. Nullum est odium perniciosius quam e beneficii violati pudore. Vale.