Ingratitude (n.) in the highest degree is to lose something and feel no obligation for having received it: chance takes the thing but leaves us its enjoyment, which we lose only by regret.
Ingratitude (n.) is punished on the spot: the ungrateful man is allowed no day of grace; he is unhappy forthwith.
Ingratitude (n.) most often begins in the discovery that one cannot be grateful enough.
Ingratitude (n.) is so common that only the naive are surprised by it; it is still better to suffer it than to stop giving.
Ingratitude (n.) is settled by belief: whoever fails to repay what he took for a benefit is ungrateful, just as a man who mixes a sleeping draught thinking it poison is a poisoner.
Ingratitude (n.) is a public vice as well as a private one: Rome herself was ungrateful to those who served her best.
Ingratitude (n.) cannot be tried in court: no law can say who is ungrateful, since a man who repaid may be ungrateful and one who did not may be grateful.