Everyone, when doing good to another, does it to themselves.

And I don't say this because those who have been helped want to help, those who have been defended want to protect, and because a good example returns to the person who set it; but I say it because every virtue finds its reward in itself.

It is not exercised with a view to a reward: the gain of a virtuous action consists in having performed it.

I demonstrate gratitude not because another, spurred by my example, is more willing to help me, but to carry out a very sweet and beautiful act; I am grateful not because it is convenient for me, but because I like it.

Therefore, as I have already said, demonstrating gratitude is a greater good for you than for your neighbor; something common happens to him, getting back what he has given, while for you something significant occurs, generated by a state of intense happiness, having demonstrated gratitude.

If wickedness makes one unhappy and virtue makes one happy, and being grateful is a virtue, you have given a common thing and obtained one of invaluable worth, the awareness of gratitude, which arises only in an extraordinary and fortunate soul.

~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca, "Letters to Lucilius" ~



I was unaware of this work (currently on display in Florence at the Palazzo Pitti), and I transcribe its brief presentation:
Between 1860 and 1870, Salvatore Grita (a Sicilian sculptor born in 1828) created a true masterpiece with his art; he wanted to carve his pain and disdain into marble, against the shocking custom of the time to intern unwed mothers in convents.
As a child of a very young mother himself, he grew up in an orphanage run by cloistered nuns and was recognized by his father Giovanni (a carpenter) only in 1854.
This terrible and significant marble masterpiece was titled "Voto contro natura" and nothing more.