“But,” you say, “the law, by not authorizing, forbids the exaction.” There are many things that do not come under the law or into court, and in these the conventions of human life, that are more binding than any law, show us the way. No law forbids us to divulge the secrets of friends; no law bids us keep faith even with an enemy. What law binds us to keep a promise that we have made to anyone? There is none. Yet I shall have a grievance against a person who has not kept the secret I told him, and I shall be indignant with one who, after giving a promise, has not kept it.
“But,” you say, “you are turning a benefit into a loan.” By no means; for I do not demand, but request, and I do not even request, but simply remind. Shall even the most pressing necessity ever force me to go to one with whom there would be need for me to have a long struggle? If anyone is so ungrateful that a simple reminder will not suffice, I shall pass him by, and judge him unworthy of being compelled to be grateful. As a money-lender makes no demand of certain debtors who he knows have become bankrupt, and, to their shame, have nothing left but what is already lost, so I shall pass over certain men who are openly and obstinately ungrateful, and I shall ask a benefit to be repaid by no one from whom I could not hope, not to extort, but to receive, a return.