Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Ingratitude
Ingratitude is the Aaron’s rod which swallows up and comprises in itself all the lesser vices.
Anonymous.
[This is the sense of a Latin Proverb which the compiler found in a Dictionary of Classical Quotations published by Robinsons in 1799:—Ingratum si dixeris omnia dices.—If you pronounce a man ungrateful, you say all that can be urged against him.]
And shall I prove ungrateful? shocking thought! He that is ungrateful has no guilt but one; all other crimes may pass for virtues in him.
Dr. Young.—Busiris, Act II. (Myron to the King.)
Scatter your favours on a fop,
Ingratitude’s the certain crop.
Pope.—Imitation of Horace, Epistle VII.
Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous, when thou show’st thee in a child,
Than the sea-monster!
Shakespeare.—King Lear, Act I. Scene 4.
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child.
Shakespeare.—King Lear, Act I. Scene 4. (Lear to Albany.)
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
Shakespeare.—King Lear, Act III. Scene 2. (Lear and Fool upon the heath.)
I hate ingratitude more in a man
Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
Or any taint of vice.
Shakespeare.—Twelfth Night, Act III. Scene 4. (Viola to Antonio.)
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude.
Shakespeare.—As You Like It, Act II. Scene 7. (A Song, Amiens sings.)
As we do turn our backs
From our companion thrown into his grave,
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away; leave their false vows with him
Like empty purses pick’d; and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air.
Shakespeare.—Timon of Athens, Act IV. Scene 2. (2nd Servant.)
Deserted at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
Dryden.—Alexander’s Feast.