The Good Book

by A. C. Grayling

  19. ‘For instance, what scope would my affections have had if Scipio had never wanted my advice or co-operation at home or abroad?

  20. ‘It is not friendship, then, that follows material advantage, but material advantage follows friendship.’

  Chapter 9

  1. ‘Who would choose a life of the greatest wealth and abundance on condition of neither loving nor being loved by any creature?

  2. ‘That is the sort of life tyrants endure. They can count on no fidelity, no affection, no security in the goodwill of anyone.

  3. ‘For them all is suspicion and anxiety; for them there is no possibility of friendship.

  4. ‘Who can love one whom he fears, or by whom he knows that he is feared?

  5. ‘Yet such men often have a show of friendship offered them, but it is only a fair-weather show.

  6. ‘If it ever happen that they fall, as it frequently does, they will at once understand how friendless they are.

  7. ‘It often happens in the case of men of unusually great means that their very wealth forbids genuine friendships.

  8. ‘For not only is fortune blind herself, but she generally makes those blind also who enjoy her favours.

  9. ‘Now, can anything be more foolish than that men who have all the opportunities that wealth can bestow, should secure all else that money can buy: horses, servants, costly plate;

  10. ‘But do not secure friends, who are, if I may use the expression, the most valuable and beautiful furniture of life?

  11. ‘And yet, when the rich acquire the former, they know not who will enjoy them, nor for whom they may be taking all this trouble;

  12. ‘For such things will all eventually belong to the strongest: while each man has a stable and inalienable ownership in his friendships.

  13. ‘Scipio often said that no one ever said anything more opposed to the essence of friendship than this: “You should love your friend with the consciousness that you may one day hate him.”

  14. ‘For how can a man be friends with another, if he thinks it possible that he may be his enemy?

  15. ‘Why, it will follow that he must wish and desire his friend to commit as many mistakes as possible, that he may have all the more handles against him;

  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 in genius, fortune, or rank.

  3. ‘People who are always mentioning their services to their friends are a nuisance. The recipient ought to remember them; the performer should never mention them.

  4. ‘In the case of friends, then, as the superior are bound to descend, so are they bound in a certain sense to raise those below them.

  5. ‘The measure of your benefits should be in the first place your own power to bestow,

  6. ‘And in the second place the capacity to bear them on the part of those on whom you bestow affection and help.

  7. ‘For, however great your personal prestige may be, you cannot raise all your friends to the highest state.

  8. ‘As a general rule, we must wait to make up our minds about friendships till men’s characters and years have reached their full maturity.

  9. ‘People must not, for instance, regard as fast friends all whom in their youthful enthusiasm for hunting or football they liked because they shared the same tastes.

  10. ‘For difference of character leads to difference of aims, and the result of such diversity is to estrange friends.

  11. ‘Another good rule in friendship is this: do not let an excessive affection hinder the highest interests of your friends. This often happens.

  12. ‘Our first aim should be to prevent a breach; our second, to secure that, if it does occur, our friendship should seem to have died a natural rather than a quarrelsome death.

  13. ‘Next, we should take care that friendship is not converted into hostility, from which flow personal quarrels, abusive language and angry recriminations.

  14. �
��By “worthy of friendship” I mean the friendship of those who have in themselves the qualities that attract affection.

  15. ‘Such people are rare; and indeed all excellent things are rare; and nothing in the world is so hard to find as a thing entirely and completely perfect of its kind.

  16. ‘But most people not only recognise nothing as good in our life unless it is profitable,

  17. ‘But they also look upon friends as so much stock, caring most for those who will bring them most profit.

  18. ‘Accordingly they never possess that most beautiful and most spontaneous friendship which exists solely for itself, without any ulterior motive.’

  Chapter 13

  1. ‘They fail also to learn about the nature and strength of friendship from their own feelings.

  2. ‘For everyone loves himself, not for any reward which such love may bring, but because he is dear to himself independently of anything else.

  3. ‘But unless this feeling is transferred to another, true friendship will never be understood; for a true friend is, as Aristotle says, a kind of second self.

  4. ‘Most people unreasonably want such a friend as they are unable to be themselves, and expect from their friends what they do not themselves give.

  5. ‘The fair course is first to be good yourself, and then to look out for another of like character.

  6. ‘It is between such that the stability in friendship we have been talking about can be secured;

  7. ‘When, that is to say, those who are united by affection learn, first of all, to rule those passions which enslave others,

  8. ‘And secondly to take delight in fair and equitable conduct, to bear each other’s burdens,

  9. ‘Never to ask each other for anything inconsistent with virtue and rectitude, and not only to serve and love but also to respect each other.

  10. ‘I say “respect”, Fannius; for if respect is gone, friendship has lost its brightest jewel.

  11. ‘And this shows the mistake of those who imagine that friendship gives a privilege to licentiousness and ill-behaviour.

  12. ‘Friendship is the handmaid of virtue, not a partner in guilt:

  13. ‘To the end that virtue, which is powerless to reach the highest objects when it is isolated, might succeed in doing so in partnership with another.

  14. ‘Those who enjoy, or have ever enjoyed, such a partnership as this, must be considered to have secured the most excellent and auspicious combination for reaching nature’s highest good.’

  Chapter 14

  1. ‘Friendship is the partnership which combines moral rectitude with the mutual gift of peace of mind,

  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 appropriate to friendship,

  18. ‘It is no less true that there can be nothing more subversive of friendship than flattery, adulation and base compliance.

  19. ‘I use as many terms as possible to brand this vice of light-minded, untrustworthy people, whose sole object is to please without regard to truth.

  20. ‘In everything false pretence is bad, for it negates our power of discerning the truth.

  21. ‘But to nothing is it so hostile as friendship; for it destroys that frankness without which friendship is an empty name.

  22. ‘For if the essence of friendship lies in the closeness of two minds, how can friendship exist if the two minds are in reality at variance?

  23. ‘Fannius, if we take reasonable care it is as easy to distinguish a genuine from a specious friend

  24. ‘As it is to distinguish what is coloured and artificial from what is sincere and genuine.

  25. ‘Fewer people are endowed with virtue than wish to be thought to be so. It is such people that take delight in flattery.

  26. ‘When they are flattered they take it as testimony to the truth of thei
r own self-praises.

  27. ‘It is not then properly friendship at all when the one will not listen to the truth, and the other is prepared to lie.’

  Chapter 16

  1. ‘And so I repeat: it is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship.

  2. ‘On it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity.

  3. ‘When virtue has shewn the light of her countenance, and recognised the same light in another,

  4. ‘She gravitates towards it, and in turn welcomes what the other has to show;

  5. ‘And from it springs up a flame which you may call either love or friendship. Both words are from the same root;

  6. ‘And love is just the cleaving to one whom you love without the prompting of need or any view to advantage,

  7. ‘Though advantage blossoms spontaneously in friendship, little as you may have looked for it.

  8. ‘It is with such warmth of feeling, Fannius, that I cherished my friends. For it was their virtue that I loved, and even death has not taken that love away.

  9. ‘I declare that of all the blessings which either fortune or nature has bestowed upon me, I know none to compare with friendship.

  10. ‘In it I found sympathy in public business, counsel in private business; in it too I found a means of spending my leisure with unalloyed delight.

  11. ‘Why speak of the eagerness with which I and my friends always sought to learn something new,

  12. ‘Spending our leisure hours in the quest for knowledge, far from the gaze of the world?

  13. ‘If the recollection and memory of these things had perished with my friends, I could not possibly endure the regret for those so closely united with me in life and affection.

  14. ‘But these things have not perished; they are rather fed and strengthened by reflection and memory.

  15. ‘This is everything I have to say on friendship. One piece of advice on parting; make up your minds to this:

  16. ‘To seek the good is the first demand we should make upon ourselves;

  17. ‘But next to the good, and to it alone, the greatest of all things is friendship.’