eaten bread is soon forgotten

proverb

Kind deeds or favors are often forgotten by the beneficiary once they have been performed.

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Meanings

proverb
  1. IrelandKind deeds or favors are often forgotten by the beneficiary once they have been performed.

    It is obvious that eaten bread is soon forgotten by anyone asking teachers to take another one for the team.

    2012 February 27, Noreen Flynn, “Further pay cuts for teachers”, in The Irish Times
    2 more examples

    Promised increases in productivity following previous pay rises never materialised -- as eaten bread is soon forgotten -- but we'll be paying for the crumbs for a long time to come.

    2008 July 6, Ciara Kelly, “We're paying the price of union power”, in Irish Independent

    Eaten bread is soon forgotten, as we do seem to quickly forget the immense funding we did receive from the EEC and then the EU over 30 years, culminating in almost IR£1bn in the late 1990s, under Albert Reynolds's time as Taoiseach.

    2011 August 13, Mary Sullivan, “We must live on less, but can our TDs?”, in Irish Independent
Cite this entry
APA

eaten bread is soon forgotten. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eaten%20bread%20is%20soon%20forgotten

MLA

“eaten bread is soon forgotten.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eaten%20bread%20is%20soon%20forgotten. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “eaten bread is soon forgotten,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eaten%20bread%20is%20soon%20forgotten.

Source: eaten bread is soon forgotten on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.