Whether we do the kindness or not is optional; but to fail to requite one is not allowable to a good man, provided he can make the requital without violating the rights of others.
Cicero: “Whether we do the kindness or not is optional; but to fail to requite one is not allowable to a good man, provided he…”
Editor's note · Context
Cicero articulates a moral imperative in his work on duties, stating that while initiating kindness is optional, failing to requite one is not permissible for a good person.
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Accordingly, in encountering danger we should do as doctors do in their practice: in light cases of illness they give mild treatment; in cases of dangerous sickness they are compelled to apply hazardous and even desperate remedies.
Besides, he will not expose anyone to hatred or disrepute by groundless charges, but he will surely cleave to justice and honour so closely that he will submit to any loss, however heavy, rather than be untrue to them, and will face death…
From this attitude come greatness of soul and a sense of superiority to worldly conditions.
For they secure one sort of justice, to be sure, in that they do no positive wrong to anyone, but they fall into the opposite injustice; for hampered by their pursuit of learning they leave to their fate those whom they ought to defend.





