Book 1
1. Among the many faults of those who live recklessly and without thinking, my good friend Liberalis, I would say that there's hardly any fault more harmful to society than this: we neither know how to give nor how to receive a benefit. This leads to benefits being poorly invested and becoming bad debts. In these cases, it's too late to complain about them not being returned because they were wasted when we gave them. It's no surprise that while the greatest vices are common, none is more common than ingratitude.
I see this is caused by various reasons. The first is that we don't choose worthy people to give our help to. Although when we are about to lend money, we first carefully check the means and habits of our debtor and avoid sowing seed in worn-out or unfruitful soil, yet we scatter our benefits randomly rather than bestow them thoughtfully.
It's hard to say whether it's more dishonorable for the receiver to deny a benefit or for the giver to demand it back. A benefit is a loan, the repayment of which depends merely on the good feeling of the debtor. To misuse a benefit like a spendthrift is most shameful because we don't need our wealth but only our intention to free us from the obligation of it; for a benefit is repaid by being acknowledged.
Yet while those who don't even show enough gratitude to acknowledge their debt are to blame, we ourselves are no less to blame. We find many people ungrateful, yet we make more people so because sometimes we harshly and reproachfully demand something in return for our help, other times we are fickle and regret what we have given, and other times we are peevish and quick to find fault with small things.
By acting this way, we destroy all sense of gratitude, not only after we have given something but while we are in the act of giving it. Who has ever thought it enough to be asked for something in an off-hand manner or to be asked only once? Who, when suspecting they were going to be asked for something, hasn't frowned, turned away their face, pretended to be busy, or purposely talked without stopping to avoid giving their friend a chance to ask for help, and avoided by various tricks having to help their friend in need?
And when cornered, hasn't either put the matter off, which is a cowardly refusal, or promised help ungraciously, with a wry face, and with unkind words they seemed to grudge saying? Yet no one is glad to owe what they haven't so much received from their benefactor as wrung out of them.
Who can be grateful for what has been disdainfully thrown to them, or angrily cast at them, or given out of weariness to avoid further trouble? No one should expect any return from those they have tired out with delays or sickened with expectation. A benefit is received in the same spirit in which it is given and shouldn't, therefore, be given carelessly, for a person thanks themselves for what they receive without the giver's knowledge.
Neither should we give after long delay because in all good deeds the will of the giver counts for much, and someone who gives tardily must have long been unwilling to give at all. Nor, certainly, should we give in an offensive manner because human nature is such that insults sink deeper than kindnesses; the memory of the latter soon fades, while that of the former is treasured in memory.
