A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.
Interpretation
A true friend allows you to be open and honest without fear of judgment.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the importance of sincerity and open communication in friendship. A genuine friend provides a safe space where one can express thoughts and feelings freely, fostering a deeper and more authentic connection that goes beyond superficial interactions.
In practice
During a speech about the value of friendships at a community event.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness; and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained.
Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow.
You should be nicer to him,' a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-favored boy. 'He has no friends.' This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can still remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min?
People of noble character are afraid of keeping friendship with dishonorable people. But people of discreditable character consider friendship with the dishonorable as a blood relationship.
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