Self-esteem and ingratitude

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Often appears with: pride, vanity, and humility · gratitude expressions · gratitude and ingratitude · furnius · friendship and loyalty · augustus

Usually: reflection (1) · exhortation (1)

Quotable

“What can prove gratitude so well as that a man should never be satisfied, should never even entertain the hope of making any adequate return for what he has received?” Lucius Annaeus Seneca, L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits · insight

L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits primary

Lucius Annaeus Seneca · c. 59-65 CE (approx.)
BOOK I. The prevalence of ingratitude--How a benefit ought to be bestowed--The three Graces--Benefits are the chief bond of human society--What we owe in return for a benefit received--A benefit consists not of a thing but of the wish to do good--Socrates and > BOOK II. (15/21)

Seneca praises expressions of gratitude as a way to make repayment clear, citing Furnius’s words to Augustus, and claims ingratitude mainly comes from excessive self-esteem and misjudging one’s own worth.

as overwhelmed by kindness; or "I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently; but, at any rate, I will never cease to express everywhere my inability to thank you." XXV. By nothing did Furnius gain greater credit with Augustus, and make it easy for him to obtain anything else for which he might ask, than by merely saying, when at his request Augustus pardoned his father for having taken Antonius's side, "One wron…