The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [41]
2. ‘And with all that men think desirable because with them life is happy but without them cannot be so.
3. ‘This being our best and highest object, we must, if we wish for it, devote ourselves to virtue;
4. ‘For without virtue we can obtain neither friendship nor anything else worthwhile.
5. ‘In fact, if virtue be neglected, those who imagine they have friends will discover their mistake as soon as some disaster forces a test of their supposed friendship.
6. ‘Therefore I must repeat, Fannius: satisfy your judgement before engaging your affections; do not love first and judge afterwards.
7. ‘We suffer from carelessness in many of our undertakings: in none more than in choosing and cultivating friends.
8. ‘All think alike about friendship, whether those who have devoted themselves to politics, or those who delight in science and philosophy,
9. ‘Or those who follow a private way of life and care for nothing but their own business,
10. ‘Or those lastly who have given themselves body and mind to sensuality;
11. ‘They all think, I say, that without friendship life is no life – if they want some part of it, at any rate, to be noble.
12. ‘For friendship, in one way or another, penetrates into the lives of us all, and suffers nothing to be entirely free from its influence.
13. ‘Though a man be so unsociable as to shun the company of mankind, yet even he cannot refrain from seeking someone to whom he can complain when he suffers.
14. ‘We should see this most clearly, if it were possible that we should be carried away to a place of perfect solitude, supplied with every abundance except companionship.
15. ‘Who could endure such a life? Who would not lose the zest for all pleasures in his loneliness?
16. ‘If a man could ascend the sky and get a clear view of the natural order of the universe, and the beauty of the stars,
17. ‘Yet that wonderful spectacle would give him small pleasure, though nothing could be conceived more delightful if only he had someone to tell what he had seen.’
Chapter 15
1. ‘Friendship is varied and complex, and it happens that causes of suspicion and offence occasionally arise,
2. ‘Which a wise man will sometimes avoid, sometimes remove, and sometimes treat with indulgence.
3. ‘A major possible cause of offence arises when the interests of your friend and your own sincerity are in conflict.
4. ‘For instance, it often happens that friends need remonstrance and even reproof.
5. ‘When these are administered in a kindly manner they ought to be taken in good part.
6. ‘But alas, it is all too true that compliance gets us friends, but plain speaking gets us enemies.
7. ‘Plain speaking is a cause of trouble, if the result is resentment, which is a poison to friendship;
8. ‘But compliance is really the cause of much more trouble, because by indulging a friend’s faults one lets him plunge into harm.
9. ‘But the man who is most to blame is he who resents plain speaking and allows flattery to egg him on to his detriment.
10. ‘On this point, then, from first to last there is need of deliberation and care. If we remonstrate, it should be without bitterness;
11. ‘If we reprove, there should be no word of insult. In the matter of compliance, though there should be every courtesy,
12. ‘Yet that base kind which assists a man in vice should be unacceptable to us, for it is unworthy of a free-born man, to say nothing of a friend.
13. ‘If a man’s ears are so closed to plain speaking that he cannot bear to hear the truth from a friend, we may give him up in despair.
14. ‘There are people who owe more to bitter enemies than to apparently pleasant friends: the former often speak the truth, the latter never.
15. ‘It is a strange paradox that people are not at all vexed at having committed a fault, but very angry at being reproved for it.
16. ‘For on the contrary, they ought to be grieved at the crime and glad of the correction.
17. ‘If it is true that to give and receive advice – to give it with freedom and yet without bitterness, receive it with patience and without irritation – is peculiarly