No accidents are so unlucky [bad] but that the wise may draw some advantage [good] from them...

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation. [However disappointment can always be removed if we remember it could have turned out worse.]

Gratitude is a lively sense of benefits to come.

Gratitude is like credit; it is the backbone of our relations; frequently we pay our debts not because equity demands that we should, but to facilitate future loans.

The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.

Gratitude, in most men, is only a strong and secret hope of greater favors.

A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.

A man seldom finds people unthankful, as long as he remains in a condition of benefiting them further.

When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own virtue.