"There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain"

Some personalities are so fiercely averse to feeling subordinate that even the act of gratitude becomes complicated. For such individuals, receiving a favor or benefit from someone else is not a straightforward occasion for thankfulness and warmth. Instead, it is a blow to their pride, a circumstance that places them in another’s debt and forces the uncomfortable admission of dependence or inferiority. For these minds, being obliged is almost intolerable; it feels like a kind of humiliation, an affront to self-sufficiency.

Their response, therefore, is not simply to feel grateful and perhaps, at some point, to return the kindness out of genuine appreciation. Rather, they rush to repay the favor as quickly or as fully as possible, not out of generosity or pleasure in reciprocation, but from a desire to rid themselves of the sense of being beholden. The act of offering something in return is less a symbol of goodwill and more an almost aggressive attempt to erase the ledger, to revert to an equal footing. Their gratitude, paradoxically, becomes akin to revenge. The way they repay is less about honoring the benefactor, and more about reclaiming their own autonomy and their pride. The benefit is returned, not as a token of affection or joy, but as a means of cancelling out the uncomfortable sense of obligation.

The psychological insight Samuel Johnson offers is acute: for some, the experience of receiving is tinged with humiliation rather than pleasure. Their independence is so dear that rather than accept indebtedness with grace, they struggle to remove it as a hostile thing. Such a mind experiences gratitude as pain, and so repays favors to escape that pain, not to celebrate kindness. Thus, for such individuals, the whole economy of favors and gratitude becomes less a dance of mutual goodwill and more a contest of pride and self-sufficiency.