Letters 81.10

Making a return means offering something to him from whom you have received something. The phrase implies a voluntary return; he who has made such a return has served the writ upon himself.

The wise man will inquire in his own mind into all the circumstances: how much he has received, from whom, when, where, how. And so we declare that none but the wise man knows how to make return for a favour; moreover, none but the wise man knows how to confer a benefit,—that man, I mean, who enjoys the giving more than the recipient enjoys the receiving.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 81.10, translated by Richard Mott Gummere