The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [39]
16. ‘And, conversely, that he must be annoyed and jealous at the right actions or good fortune of his friends.
17. ‘This maxim, then, let it be whose it will, is the utter negation of friendship.
18. ‘The true rule is to take such care in the selection of our friends as never to enter upon a friendship with anyone whom we could come to hate.
19. ‘Scipio used to complain that there is nothing on which people bestow so little pains as friendship:
20. ‘That everyone could tell exactly how many goats or sheep he had, but not how many friends;
21. ‘And while they took pains in procuring the former, they were careless in selecting friends, and applied no thought to how they might judge of their suitability for friendship.’
Chapter 10
1. ‘The qualities we ought to look for in choosing friends are firmness, stability and constancy.
2. ‘Where shall we look for these in people who put friendship beneath office, civil or military promotions, and political power,
3. ‘And who, when the choice lies between these things on the one side and the claims of friendship on the other, do not give a strong preference to the former?
4. ‘It is not in human nature to be indifferent to power; and if the price men have to pay for it is the sacrifice of friendship,
5. ‘They think their treason will be eclipsed by the magnitude of the reward.
6. ‘This is why true friendship is so difficult to find among politicians and those who contest for office.
7. ‘Where can you find the man to prefer his friend’s advancement to his own?
8. ‘And think how grievous and intolerable it is to most men to share political disaster. You will scarcely find anyone who can bring himself to do that.
9. ‘And though it is true that the hour of need shows the friend indeed, yet it is in the following two ways that most people betray their untrustworthiness and inconstancy:
10. ‘By disdaining friends when they are themselves prosperous, or by deserting them in their distress.
11. ‘A person, then, who has shown a firm, unshaken and unvarying friendship in both these contingencies,
12. ‘Must be reckoned as one of a class the rarest in the world, and all but superhuman.’
Chapter 11
1. ‘What is the quality to look for as a promise of stability and permanence in friendship? Loyalty.
2. ‘We should also look for simplicity, a sociable disposition, and a sympathetic nature, moved by what moves us.
3. ‘You can never trust a character which is intricate and tortuous.
4. ‘Nor is it possible for one to be trustworthy and firm who is unsympathetic by nature and unmoved by what affects others.
5. ‘There are two characteristic features in his treatment of his friends that a good person will always display:
6. ‘First, he will be entirely without make-believe or pretence of feeling;
7. ‘For the open display even of dislike is more becoming to an ingenuous character than a studied concealment of sentiment.
8. ‘Second, there should be a certain pleasantness in word and manner, for these add much flavour to friendship.
9. ‘A gloomy temper and unvarying gravity may seem impressive; but friendship should be less unbending,
10. ‘More indulgent and gracious, more inclined to all kinds of good-fellowship and good nature.
11. ‘But here arises a question of some little difficulty. Are there any occasions on which, assuming their worthiness, we should prefer new to old friends, just as we prefer young to aged horses?
12. ‘The answer is clear. There should be no satiety in friendship, as there is in other things. The older the sweeter, as in wines that keep well.
13. ‘And the proverb is a true one, “You must eat many a peck of salt with a man to be thorough friends with him.”’
Chapter 12
1. ‘Have I yet said enough, Fannius, to show that in friendship, just as those who possess any superiority must put themselves on an equal footing with those who are less fortunate,
2. ‘So these latter must not be annoyed at being surpassed