I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Hath often left me mourning.

I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deedsWith coldness still returning;Alas! the gratitude of menHath oftener left me mourning.

Let but the commons hear this testament, Which (pardon me) I do not mean to read, And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds And dip their napkins in his sacred blood; Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, And dying, mention it within their wills, Bequeathing it as a rich legacy Upon their issue.

Now the good gods forbid That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude Towards her deserved children is enrolled In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam Should now eat up her own!

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come.