MAXIMS ON FRIENDSHIP

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6546, 20 November 1924, Page 6

MAXIMS ON FRIENDSHIP

Let us play awhile in the library. The subject of friendship has engaged the attention of thinkers in all ages. Many of their conclusions have come down to us in proverbs. From these sentences of condensed wisdom we can catch many a shrewd hint. For instance, a maxim found in various forms in different languages is: The way to make friends that will last long is to be a long time making them. The Greeks had it: Do not make friends quickly. A precept of Bias has aroused much discussion: Love as if one day you will hate; hate as if one day you will love.

An offset to this is attributed to Caesar: I would rather die once than mistrust always. And Spurgeon's apothegm was: He who believes everybody will be bitten, but he who believes nobody will be devoured. Who is too much of a friend to himself is a friend to no one else, is a saying of all lands. La Bruyere puts it: Indulgence towards one’s self and severity towards others is one and the same vice. And the Latins: The selflover has no rival. That we prefer a moderate but durable friendship to a Share in my tastes and ways is expressed by: Love me little, love me long. And that if you love me you must love what I love, and share in my tastes and ways, is expressed by: Love me, love my dog.

In almost every language we find the equivalent of: A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Aristotle quotes a Greek proverb: Who ceases to be a friend never was one. One friend is Worth a hundred relatives, or: Fate gives us relatives, we choose our friends, shows the superiority, in the common mind, of friendship over kinship. It was Socrates who said: A friend is another self. And Aristotle the like: A friend is one soul in two bodies.

That a good liver should be a. good hater is the basis of the proverb: A good enemy makes a good friend. This, however, is denied by Senac de Meilhan, who writes: Love springs from heart; hate form egotism. Friends are sometimes hurt by illtimed wit, hence: Better lose a joke than a friend. That friendship once broken is hard to mend appears in the Spanish: Amiga reconciliado, enemigo doblado —a reconciled friend’s a double enemy. To have no money dealings with personal friends is taught in many wise saws: He that lends to his friends loses double. The way to lose a friend is to lend him money. The Russians say: Refuse to lend, and make an enemy; lend and make an eternal enemy. >The Turks: Eat and drink with a friend, but do no business with him. Sincerity is the sacrament of friendship, says the Arabs. Also: A thousand friends is not enough, and one enemy is too many. God save me from my friends! I can save myself from my enemies, is a saying found elsewhere.