A passage from Seneca
Seneca, On Benefits III.15
✱
We should give benefits, not in order to receive them, but because it is right to give. The reward of virtue is virtue itself.
Related passages
✱
Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
✱
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work — as a human being.'
✱
Take care not to be Caesarified, or dyed with purple; for it does happen. Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation.