One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable.
Interpretation
Friendship is often seen as a lifelong commitment, but it's a misconception that every friendship must last forever.
H. L. Mencken's quote challenges the romanticized view of friendship as something that must be eternal or life-long. He suggests that it is a human delusion to think of friendships in such a rigid way, and that ending a friendship should not be seen as a discreditable act, but rather a natural part of life that can happen for various reasons.
In practice
In a speech about the evolution of friendships over time.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
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.
We all started playing football against our best friends, and I can't remember a moment where, because it was my best friend, I did not want to win against him.
Golf camaraderie, like that of astronauts and Antarctic explorers, is based on a common experience of transcendence; fat or thin, scratch or duffer, we have been somerwhere together where non-golfers never go.
I'll never see them again. I know that. And they know that. And knowing this, we say farewell.
Friends: not one. Just a few acquaintances who imagine they feel something for me and who might be sorry if a train ran over me and the funeral was on a rainy day.
Friends come and go but I wouldn't have thought you'd be one of them
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