Skip to main content

Essay: Friendship



                                                                 

 The great Roman orator, Cicero, in his celebrated treatise of Friendship, remarks with that it increases happiness and diminishes misery by doubling our joy and dividing our grief. When we do well, it is delightful to have friends who are so proud of our success that they receive as much pleasure from it as we do ourselves. For the friendless man the attainment of wealth, power, and honour is of little value. Such possessions contribute to our happiness the most by enabling us to do good to others, but if all those whom we are able to benefit are strangers, we take far less pleasure in our beneficence than if it were exerted on behalf of the friends whose happiness is as dear to us as our own. Further, when we do our duty in spite of temptation, the mental satisfaction obtained from the approval of our conscience is heightened by the praise of our friends: for judgment is as it were a second conscience, encouraging us in good and deterring us from evil. Our amusements have little zest and soon fall upon us if we engage in them in solitude, or with uncongenial companies, for whom we can feel no affection. Thus in every case our joys are rendered more intense and more permanent by being shared with friends.

It is equally true that, as Cicero points out, friendship diminishes our misery by enabling us to share its burden with others. When fortune has infected a heavy unavoidable blow upon us, our grief is alleviated by friendly condolence and by the thought that, as long as our friends are left to us, life is still worth living.

But many misfortunes which threaten us are not inevitable, and in escaping such misfortunes, the advice and active assistance of our friends may be invaluable. The friendless man stands alone, exposed without protectation to his enemies and to the blows of fortune, but whoever has loyal friends is thereby provided with a strong defence against the worst that fortune can do to him.

Thus in good and ill fortune, in our work and in our hours of recreation, true friends is the most important means to the attainment of happiness and the alleviation or avoidance of misery. It must be remembered, however, that these remarks only apply to friends really worthy the name. The evil that may be affected by bad friends is as great as good secured by the possession of good friends. On this account the right selection of friends is of vital importance. We should choose our friends with the greatest care, and, when we have won them and found them worthy, we should take care to retain them till we are severed from them by death.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Self-Motivation is the Best Antidote!

If you ever scrutinize around your surroundings you’ll always find motivation in everything. You don’t need to go anywhere. The rising sun always motivates you to rise up early and to begin your new day. The green trees and plants always motivate you to grow every day. The small creepers always motivate you to welcome everybody. The blooming flowers always motivate you to pass a sweet and gentle smile to everyone no matter whatsoever happens in your life. The hovering colourful butterflies always motivate you to remain happy and contented in every situation of your life. The flying and singing birds in the open blue sky always motivate you to free your trapped mind and soul, and to open your closed heart. The fluttering tiny bee always motivates you to keep yourself busy. The crawling small ants always motivate you to work every day. The grazing cattle always motivate you to stay together. The seven colourful rainbows always motivate y...

We get back in life what we give to others! (Moral Story)

  There was a farmer who sold a pound of butter to the baker. One day the baker decided to weight the butter to see if he was getting a pound and he found that he was not. This angered him and he took the farmer to court. The Judge asked the farmer if he was using any measure. The farmer replied, “ Your honor, I am primitive. I don’t have a proper measure, but I do have a scale.” The judge asked, “ Then how do you weight the butter?” The farmer replied, “ Your homour, long before the baker started buying butter from me, I have been buying a pound loaf of bread from him. Every day when the baker brings the bread, I put it on the scale and give him the same weight in butter. If anyone is to be blamed, it is the baker.” What is the moral of the story? We get back in life what we give to others. Whenever you take an action, ask yourself this question: Am I giving fair value for the wages or money I hope to make? Honesty and dishonesty become a habit. Some peopl...

Today’s Quotes

A single hour spent with a good book and a cup of tea can provide an entire day’s worth of contentment. ---***--- Don’t despair when the going gets rough, for that’s when you discover how strong you really are. ---***--- Each and every one of us is deserving of a kind word, a gentle thought, and the gift of understanding. ---***--- You have the power to make happiness a way of life, instead of an occassional experience. ---***--- Pray as if everything depended upon God and work as if everything depended upon man. ---***--- If you really want to be happy, nobody can stop you. ---***--- We would be more peaceful if we would not trust ourselves with the sayings and doings of others. ---***--- The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts and deeds. ---***--- When you are in the right, you can afford to keep your temper, and when you are in the...