benefit; who pretends that he has not received it; who does not
return it. The most ungrateful man of all is he who forgets it. The
others, though they do not repay it, yet feel their debt, and
possess some traces of worth, though obstructed by their bad
conscience. They may by some means and at some time be brought to
show their gratitude, if, for instance, they be pricked by shame,
if they conceive some noble ambition such as occasionally rises
even in the breasts of the wicked, if some easy opportunity of
doing so offers; but the man from whom all recollection of the
benefit has passed away can never become grateful. Which of the two
do you call the worse--he who is ungrateful for kindness, or he who
does not even remember it? The eyes which fear to look at the light
are diseased, but those which cannot see it are blind. It is filial
impiety not to love one's parents, but not to recognise them is
madness.

II. Who is so ungrateful as he who has so completely laid aside and
cast away that which ought to be in the forefront of his mind and
ever before him, that he knows it not? It is clear that if
forgetfulness of a benefit steals over a man, he cannot have often
thought about repaying it.

In short, repayment requires gratitude, time, opportunity, and the
help of fortune; whereas, he who remembers a benefit is grateful
for it, and that too without expenditure. Since gratitude demands
neither labour, wealth, nor good fortune, he who fails to render it
has no excuse behind which to shelter himself; for he who places a
benefit so far away that it is out of his sight, never could have
meant to be grateful for it. Just as those tools which are kept in
use, and are daily touched by the hand, are never in danger of