Repeated reference to our services wounds and crushes the spirit of the other. He wants to cry out like the man who, after being saved from the proscription of the triumvirs by one of Caesar’s friends, because he could not endure his benefactor’s arrogance, cried “Give me back to Caesar!” How long will you keep repeating: “It is I who saved you, it is I who snatched you from death”? Your service, if I remember it of my own will, is truly life; if I remember it at yours, it is death. I owe nothing to you if you saved me in order that you might have someone to exhibit. How long will you parade me? How long will you refuse to let me forget my misfortune? In a triumph, I should have had to march but once! No mention should be made of what we have bestowed; to remind a man of it is to ask him to return it. It must not be dwelt upon, it must not be recalled to memory — the only way to remind a man of an earlier gift is to give him another.
And we must not tell others of it, either. Let the giver of a benefit hold his tongue; let the recipient talk. For the same thing that was said to another man when he was boasting of a benefit he had conferred will be said to you. “You will not deny,” said the beneficiary, “that you have had full return.” “When?” inquired the other. “Many times,” was the reply, “and in many places — that is, every time and in every where that you have told of it!” But what need is there to speak of a benefit, what need to preempt the right that belongs to another? There is someone else who can do more creditably what you are doing, someone who in telling of your deed will laud even your part in not telling of it. You must adjudge me ungrateful if you suppose that no one will know of your deed if you yourself are silent! But so far from its being permissible for us to speak of it, even if anyone tells of our benefits in our presence, it is our duty to reply: “While this man is in the highest degree worthy to receive even greater benefits, yet I am more conscious of being willing to bestow all possible benefits upon him than of having actually bestowed them hitherto.” And in saying even this there must be no show of currying favor, nor of that air with which some reject the compliments that they would rather appropriate.
Besides, we must add to generosity every possible kindness. The farmer will lose all that he has sown if he ends his labors with putting in the seed; it is only after much care that crops are brought to their yield; nothing that is not encouraged by constant cultivation from the first day to the last ever reaches the stage of fruit. In the case of benefits the same rule holds. Can there possibly be any greater benefits than those that a father bestows upon his children? Yet they are all in vain if they are discontinued in the child’s infancy — unless long-lasting devotion nurses its first gift. And the same rule holds for all other benefits — you will lose them unless you assist them; it is not enough that they were given, they must be tended. If you wish to have gratitude from those whom you lay under an obligation, you must, not merely give, but love, your benefits. Above all, as I have said, let us spare the ears; a reminder stirs annoyance, a reproach hatred. In giving a benefit nothing ought to be avoided so much as haughtiness. Why need your face show disdain, your words assumption? The act itself exalts you. Empty boasting must be banished; our deeds will speak even if we are silent. The benefit that is haughtily bestowed wins, not only ingratitude, but ill-will.