Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton Quotes

Most men remember obligations, but are not often likely to be grateful; the proud are made sour by the remembrance and the vain silent.

It is not polite to receive a favor without returning it.

You save my face this afternoon and I’ll save your face tomorrow.

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.

I never wanted something from somebody without being able to kind of reciprocate, I guess.

A grateful mind/ By owing owes not, but still pays, at once/ Indebted and discharg'd.

That man is worthless who knows how to receive a favor, but not how to return one.

It seems like the first law of Nature is that everybody likes to receive things, but nobody likes to feel grateful.

Never let your inferiors do you a favor - it will be extremely costly.

He who will not grant a favour has no right to ask one.

Thanking people is dangerous business. A name always slips your mind.

So long as we stand in need of a benefit, there is nothing dearer to us; nor anything cheaper when we have received it.

To accept a favor from a friend is to confer one.

There is as much greatness of mind in the owning of a good turn as in the doing of it; and we must no more force a requital out of season than be wanting in it.

One good turne asketh another.

People who want to rise above a well-cooked meal and a well-tailored garment, are out of their spiritual minds.

The man who confers a favour would rather not be repaid in the same coin.

The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burthensome, still paying, still to owe; Forgetful what from him I still receivd, And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but still pays, at once Indebted and dischargd; what burden then?

He who boasts of a favor bestowed, would like it back again.

Besides, it's the first gift that's always the hardest to pay back. I wouldn't even have been here to do it if you hadn't helped me then.

Isn't the greatest rule of all the rules simply to please?

Ours is the responsibility to show our gratitude by the actions of our lives.

Victory is sweetest when you've know defeat. Ability will never catch up with the demand for it. You pay for everything, even including speaking your mind (with or without one). Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.

I am terribly glad to be alive; and when I have wit enough to think about it, terribly proud to be a man and an American, with all the rights and privileges that those words connote; and most of all I am humble before the responsibilities that are also mine. For no right comes without a responsibility, and being born luckier than most of the world's millions, I am also born more obligated.

Before giving, the mind of the giver is happy; while giving, the mind of the giver is made peaceful; and having given, the mind of the giver is uplifted.