I hope you're right! I mean, at the level of personal relationships I fully agree[0]. However, institutions tend to be forgetful.

[0]: Someone once said to me something very similar to what you quoted: "Be nice to people. People will remember you. And they will gossip if they don't like you and you have wronged them. It's much easier to ruin your reputation with a single action done to a single person than to build up a good one."