120 philosophical essays you must read in your life

Chapter 96

Chapter 5 Chapter 17 What is Friendship?

[French] Montaigne
We love friendships, it may just be in our nature.Aristotle said that good legislators care more about friendship than justice.For friendship is of various kinds, and is usually sustained by lust, interest, public or private need; but the more friendship penetrates into some other cause than itself, the less beautiful and noble it is, the less friendship there is.

Children treat their father with more respect than friendship.Friendship requires communication, and father and son are too unequal to have this kind of communication; friendship may injure the natural obligations between father and son, and it is impossible for the father to tell the child the secrets in his heart, for fear that the child will be too casual with his father and lose his dignity; It is also impossible to give advice to the father and correct his mistakes, but this is an important principle of friendship.

Love is not friendship either, for love is a fickle emotion, wild and impulsive, hot and cold, that binds us to one hair.Friendship is a universal passion, calm and steady, calm and unchanging, pleasant and refined, and free from sorrow and pain.Friendships sublimate and develop when enjoyed.Because friendship is spiritual, the soul will be purified accordingly.

What we usually call friends and friendships are only those frequent associations and intimacy connected by opportunities of fellowship.In what I call a friendship, hearts and minds merge so seamlessly that there is no longer a link.If someone asks me why I like him, I find it difficult to explain clearly, so I can only say: "Because it's him, because it's me."

Don't confuse the ordinary friendship with the supreme friendship, I have experienced this ordinary friendship like everyone else, and I think it is perfect, but don't confuse the rules, otherwise you will get it wrong.In an ordinary friendship, you must hold the reins tightly when walking, as if walking on thin ice, be careful at all times, and guard against rupture at any time. "Love him with the thought of hating him one day, and hate him with the thought of love with him someday." This is an aphorism, which is abhorrent to that supreme friendship.But for ordinary and ordinary friendship, it is a bitter medicine.

Benefits and services are scorned in nobility and friendship, and in noble friendship, if one can give to the other.Then the party who receives the benefit is giving the partner a favor.Because both parties want to do good things for each other, this desire is stronger than the desire to do other things, agreeing to do what a friend wants to do most is to do favors to a friend.

Is there anything more happiest than having noble friendships?

【Together with you】

Friendship is a great emotion different from family affection and love. It does not involve interests, let alone a transaction.True friendship is free from the interference of profit, and only those who abide by such a principle can become true friends.

(End of this chapter)