“It is the nature of men to be bound by the benefits they confer as much as by those they receive.”
Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 10; translated by W. K. Marriot
Phantastes (1858)
“It is the nature of men to be bound by the benefits they confer as much as by those they receive.”
Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 10; translated by W. K. Marriot
Michel De Montaigne book Essays
Book II, Ch. 8. Of the Affections of Fathers
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
F. Anstey (1856–1934) English novelist and journalist
Source: The Brass Bottle (1900), Chapter 4, “At Large”
“He who receives a benefit with gratitude, repays the first installment of it.”
Qui grate beneficium accipit, primam eius pensionem solvit.
Seneca the Younger Moral Essays
De Beneficiis (On Benefits): Book 2, cap. 22, line 1.
Moral Essays
William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist
Book III, Chapter 9
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist
Source: The Principles of Ethics (1897), Part I: The Data of Ethics, Ch. 8, The Sociological View
“The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire to receive even greater benefits.”
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
La reconnaissance de la plupart des hommes n'est qu'une secrète envie de recevoir de plus grands bienfaits.
Variant translation: Gratitude is the lively expectation of favours yet to come.
Maxim 298. Compare: "The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours", attributed to Sir Robert Walpole.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Mozi (-470–-391 BC) Chinese political philosopher and religious reformer of the Warring States period
Book 4; Universal Love III
Mozi