There is nothing so fleeting as the memory of benefits received.
Interpretation
Memories of kindness and benefits are easily forgotten over time.
This quote suggests that while people may express gratitude for the help or benefits they receive, such memories tend to fade quickly. It reflects on human nature and the tendency to take kindness for granted, emphasizing the transient nature of appreciation and the importance of recognizing and valuing support as it occurs.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the importance of remembrance in relationships.
If you attempt certain things at the right time, they are easy to accomplish - in fact, they almost get done by themselves. If you undertake them before the time is right, not only will they fail, but they will often become impossible to accomplish even when the time would have been right.
Conspiracies, since they cannot be engaged in without the fellowship of others, are for that reason most perilous; for as most men are either fools or knaves, we run excessive risk in making such folk our companions.
He who imitates what is evil always goes beyond the example that is set; on the contrary, he who imitates what is good always falls short.
Let no one trust so entirely to natural prudence as to persuade himself that it will suffice to guide him without help from experience.
Few revolutions succeed, and when they do, you often discover they did not gain what you hoped for, and you condemn yourself to perpetual fear, as the parties you defeated may always regain power and work for your ruin.
One who imitates what is bad always goes beyond his model; while one who imitates what is good always comes up short of it.
In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect.
There where hundreds of graves. There where hundreds of women. There were hundreds of daughters. There were hundreds of sons. And hundreds upon hundreds upon thousands of candles. The whole graveyard was one swarm of candleshine as if a population of fireflies had heard of a Grand Conglomeration and had flown here to settle in and flame upon the stones and light the brown faces and the dark eyes and the black hair.
Perhaps the whisper was born before lips, And the leaves in treelessness circled and flew, And those, to whom we impart our experience as bliss, Acquire their forms before we do
The eternal stars shine out again, so soon as it is dark enough.
As we dread any disease that undermines the health of the body, so should we deplore contention, which is a corroding canker of the spirit.
The scales of reckoning with mortality are never evenly weighted, alas, and thus it is on the shoulders of the living that the burden of justice must continue to rest.
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