"Ingratitude is some one's protest that you are no longer necessary to him; it is often the expression of rebellion at the discontinuance of favors. People are rarely ungrateful until they have exhausted their assessments. Profuse expressions of gratitude do not cancel an indebtedness any more than a promissory note settles an account. It is …
Tag: William George Jordan
The Courage to Face Ingratitude XVI
"That which often seems to us to be ingratitude, may be merely our own ignorance of the subtle phases of human nature. Sometimes a man's heart is so full of thankfulness that he cannot speak, and in the very intensity of his appreciation, mere words seem to him paltry, petty, and inadequate, and the depth …
The Courage to Face Ingratitude XV
"Let us forget the good deeds we have done by making them seem small in comparison with the greater things we are doing, and the still greater acts we hope to do. This is true generosity, and will develop gratitude in the soul of him who has been helped, unless he is so petrified in …
The Courage to Face Ingratitude XIV
"The essence of truest kindness lies in the grace with which it is performed. Some men seem to discount all gratitude, almost make it impossible, by the way in which they grant favors. They make you feel so small, so mean, so inferior; your cheeks burn with indignation in the acceptance of the boon you …
The Courage to Face Ingratitude XIII
"We must ever tower high above dependence on human gratitude or we can do nothing really great, nothing truly noble. The expectation of gratitude is the alloy of an otherwise virtuous act. It ever dulls the edge of even our best actions. Most persons look at gratitude as a protective tariff on virtues. The man …
The Courage to Face Ingratitude XII
"Ingratitude is manifest in three degrees of intensity in the world... The first phase, the simplest and most common, is that of thoughtless thanklessness... The second phase of ingratitude is denial, a positive sin, not the mere negation of thanklessness... The third phase of ingratitude is treachery, where selfishness grows vindictive... These three—thanklessness, denial and …
The Courage to Face Ingratitude XI
"The farmer does not expect every seed that he sows in hope and faith to fall on good ground and bring forth its harvest; he is perfectly certain that this will not be so, cannot be so. He is counting on the final outcome of many seeds, on the harvest of all rather than on …
The Courage to Face Ingratitude X
"If a man receives a counterfeit dollar he does not straightway lose his faith in all money,—at least there are not such instances on record in this country. If he has a run of three or four days of dull weather he does not say 'the sun ceases to exist, there are surely no bright …
The Courage to Face Ingratitude IX
"Confidence and credit are the cornerstones of business, as they are of society. Withdraw them from business and the activities and enterprises of the world would stop in an instant, topple and fall into chaos. Withdraw confidence in humanity from the individual, and he becomes but a breathing, selfish egotist, the one good man left, …
The Courage to Face Ingratitude VIII
"In justice to ourselves we should not permit the ingratitude of a few to make us condemn the whole world. We pay too much tribute to a few human insects when we let their wrong-doing paralyze our faith in humanity. It is a lie of the cynics that says “all men are ungrateful,” a companion …
Gregory Hake 