Reciprocity


Tit for Tat, Quid Pro Quo, Give and Take, An Eye for an Eye, Fairness, Cooperation

Quotations, Sayings, Aphorisms, Clichés, Quips, Quotes, Wisdom, Poetry

"Do unto others as you would have them do to you."
- Luke 6:31, New Testament Bible, circa 85 CE

"Love your neighbor as yourself." 
-  Mark 12:31, New Testament Bible, circa 70 CE

“Make time for those who make time for you. Treasure those who care enough to invest their time and energy. Friendship is for giving.”
-  Akiroq Brost

Quid pro quo ("something for something" in Latin) is a Latin phrase used in English to mean an exchange of goods or services, in which one transfer is contingent upon the other; "a favor for a favor". Phrases with similar meanings include: "give and take", "tit for tat", "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours", and "one hand washes the other". Other languages use other phrases for the same purpose.

"In common law, quid pro quo indicates that an item or a service has been traded in return for something of value, usually when the propriety or equity of the transaction is in question. A contract must involve consideration: that is, the exchange of something of value for something else of value.

“The characteristics of healthy boundaries include self-respect; non-tolerance of abuse or disrespect; responsibility for exploring and nurturing personal potential; two-way communication of wants, needs, and feelings; expectations of reciprocity; and sharing responsibility and power.”
-  Laurie Buchanan, PhD

“Perhaps the most legitimately dispiriting thing about reciprocal altruism is that it is a misnomer. Whereas with kin selection the "goal" of our genes is to actually help another organism, with reciprocal altruism the goal is that the organism be left under the impression that we've helped; the impression alone is enough to bring the reciprocation.”
-  Robert Wright

""Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions."
-  Samuel Johnson

"Subjects who reciprocally recognize each other as such, must consider each other as identical, insofar as they both take up the position of subject; they must at all times subsume themselves and the other under the same category. At the same time, the relation of reciprocity of recognition demands the non-identity of one and the other, both must also maintain their absolute difference, for to be a subject implies the claim of individuation."
-  Jürgen Habermas‎

“The line "too much love will kill you" is not true. It's not too much love that kills, but the lack of its reciprocity.”
-  Nelson M. Lubao

“Allegiance, after all, has to work two ways; and one can grow weary of an allegiance which is not reciprocal.”
-  James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

"Commerce, trade and exchange make other people more valuable alive than dead, and mean that people try to anticipate what the other guy needs and wants.  It engages the mechanisms of reciprocal altruism, as the evolutionary biologists call it, as opposed to raw dominance."
-  Steven Pinker

"Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals."
-  Hermann Melville

"Work is the way we contribute to society, part of a reciprocal social contract - the giving of our effort and our taking when in need - that holds our society together.  We work, we build our society, and we share in its prosperity."
-  Chuka Umunna

“Other people's life stories are not a topic for debate. One should hear them out, and reciprocate in the same coin.”
-  Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

“Reciprocal accountability, or criticism is the only known antidote to error.”
-  David Brin

"Jealousy knows no logic, nor does it respect reciprocity."
-  Jean Edward Smith

"Tell me if you've ever had to deal with these kinds of people:

The kind who take and don't give.
The kind to whom you give and give,
And they keep asking.
The kind to whom you give and give and they say you gave nothing.
The kind whom have never offered anything,
But act like they're the ones providing
EVERYTHING.

The kind you give and give,
But take more than you can give.
And when they have already taken everything,
They get mad at you when you say you have
Nothing more to give.

The unforgiving,
The misgiving,
Wastefully living -
And selfishly driven.
The rat that never gives back,
Yet is so quick to attack -
Because they think the word
TAKING
Seriously means
GIVING.”
- Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

"Information: the negative reciprocal value of probability."
-  Claude Shannon 

“As we apprentice ourselves to the way of nature, we begin to understand that all of life is in a continuous cycle of giving and receiving. It is the honoring of this cycle that makes us feel at home in ourselves and in relation to the rest of nature. In order to experience true belonging, we must not only acknowledge the gifts we are receiving, but also give our beauty away, no matter how it may be received by others.”
-  Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home

"There are many benefits to this process of listening.  The first is that good listeners are created as people feel listened to.  Listening is a reciprocal process - we become more attentive to others if they have attended to us."
-  Margaret J. Weatley

"The basis of social relationships is reciprocity: if you cooperate with others, others will cooperate with you."
-  Carroll Quigley

“Everybody hated the Chinese, and the Chinese, ever willing to oblige, reciprocated.”
-  Nick Tosches, King of the Jews

"The first internal relation that is essential to a secret society is the reciprocal confidence of its members."
-  Georg Simmel

"Social peace requires reciprocity."
-  Ralph Peters

"Abundance is a dance with reciprocity - what we can give, what we can share, and what we receive in the process."
-  Terry Tempest Williams

"True community is based on equality, mutuality, and reciprocity.  It affirs the richness of individual diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us toghether."
-  Pauli Murray

Trust and Reciprocity: Interdisciplinary Lessons for Experimental Research.  The Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust, Vol. 6.  Edited by Elinor Ostrom and James Walker.  Index,. 432 pages, 2003.