> Assuming that I understood that what I was taking was yours, and that I was not acting under some kind of duress [...] my theft indicates that I see the world in value-terms opposed to yours. Your "bad" is my "good." If you are to hold me accountable for this, instead of letting me off the hook, you will make this (accidental, adventitious) opposition a principle and rule for our interactions.

> Revenge allows you to turn the principle of my action into a rule for your conduct toward me: you make my bad your good. This is the opposite of trying to undo or reverse my action. You hold me accountable by holding onto my theft, refusing to forget it, turning its one-off opposition between our interests into a rule to which I am now subject. [...] Angry people sometimes describe their vengeance as "teaching someone a lesson," and this is quite literally true: you make my wronging of you into a general principle and then "educate" me by imposing it on me.

This is an important lesson for those more naturally inclined toward forgiveness (though I would say it's important because it says something about what successful rehabilitation or education more often look like, or at least involve, in real life).

Speaking personally, it's a principle that it took me quite a lot of experience to understand.

> Educating me in this way is not easy on you: making my evil your good has psychological costs, among them the fact that you divert yourself away from what would otherwise be good for you. You must remodel your psychological landscape into one devoted to regulating mine. [...] I've colonized your fantasy life.