The reason why the Cardinal [Mazarin] deferred so long to grant the favors he had promised, was because he was persuaded that hope was much more capable of keeping men to their duty than gratitude.
[La raison pourquoi le Cardinal différoit tant à accorder les grâces qu’il avoit promises, c’est qu’il étoit persuadé que l’espérance est bien plus capable de retenir les hommes dans le devoir que non pas la reconnoissance.]
Jean Racine (1639-1699) French dramatist
Fragments Historiques [tr. Bund/Friswell (1871)]
(Source)
(Source (French)).
This phrase is quoted by commenters on La Rochefoucauld in conjunction with his Maxim 38.
Quotations about:
favors
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Most People return small Favors, acknowledge middling ones, and repay great ones with Ingratitude.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Apr 1751)
There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
George Washington (1732–1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789–1797)
Farewell Address (17 Sep 1796) [with A. Hamilton]
VIR: I’d like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave, like this. Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 2×16 “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum” (10 May 1995)
