All we can do is to make the best of our friends, love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way what is bad.
Interpretation
We should appreciate and nurture the good qualities in our friends while avoiding their negative traits.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of valuing and cherishing the positive aspects of our friendships, suggesting that we focus on the goodness in our friends and try to minimize the impact of their flaws. It highlights the notion that relationships are built on appreciation and understanding, and that recognizing both strengths and weaknesses is key to maintaining strong connections.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of companionship, one could cite this quote to emphasize valuing friends.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
If we were all given by magic the power to read each otherβs thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.
Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.
As long as you are lucky, you will have many friends; if cloudy times appear, you will be alone. -Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos; tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris
I have no trouble with y enemies. But my god damn friends... they are the ones that keep me walking the floors at night.
Is there any pleasure in anger? Yes, if the fire of my anger appeases the ashes of my friends.
For there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to lift one if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands.
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