It is with benefits as with injuries in this respect, that we do not so much weigh the accidental good or evil they do us, as that which they were designed to do us.—That is, we consider no part of them so much as their intention.
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (1713–1768), British author, clergyman. Sermons, sermon 13, “Duty of setting bounds to our desires” (1760), ed. Melvyn New, University Press of Florida (1996).