“A man may be ungrateful but is less chargeable with ingratitude than his benefactor.”
Tel homme est ingrat, qui est moins coupable de son ingratitude que celui qui lui a fait du bien.
Maxim 96.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
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François de La Rochefoucauld156
French author of maxims and memoirs 1613–1680Related quotes
“The best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground
Variant translation: If I had to define man it would be: a biped, ungrateful.
Part 1, Chapter 8 (page 28)
Notes from Underground (1864)
George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist
‘’It Shall Not Be Forgiven’’
Unspoken Sermons, First Series (1867)
Source: Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
Letter to Josiah Quincy III (14 February 1825)
1820s
Irving Babbitt (1865–1933) American academic and literary criticism
Source: "English and the Discipline of Ideas" (1920), p. 67
Fawn M. Brodie (1915–1981) American historian and biographer
No Man Knows My History, ch. 19 (1945)
Julien Benda (1867–1956) French essayist
Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), p. 108