Of the Recompenses of Honour

Reason instructs us that we should not cheapen what we wish to preserve. The Romans understood this in their system of rewards: the civic crown, given to the man who had saved the life of a citizen in battle, was worth more than gold, precisely because it was made of oak leaves and given rarely. The very simplicity of it was its dignity. Once you begin to reward every serviceable act with a triumph, the triumph ceases to mean anything, and you have traded the substance of honour for its shadow.

I have seen princes who gave away their favours so freely that the receiving of them became a kind of embarrassment, since it no longer distinguished the receiver from the crowd. There is something self-defeating in a liberality that is really a form of carelessness. The man who gives everything to everyone has not given anything at all — he has simply distributed. The gift that costs the giver nothing imposes on the receiver no obligation, and carries no warmth, and is forgotten by the afternoon.

Honour is like fine glass: handled too often, it loses its brightness; drop it once and it does not recover.

The same is true of praise. A man who praises indiscriminately finds that his praise soon purchases nothing. The servant who is told he has done excellently each time he brings a cup of water will disbelieve it when he has truly done something excellent. The currency must be kept scarce to hold its value. I do not say we should be sparing in gratitude or stingy with recognition — I say only that what we want to matter must be given weight, and weight requires rarity. The world runs on this principle in everything it prices: what is everywhere costs nothing.