Opportunistic relationships can hardly be kept constant. The acquaintance of honorable people, even at a distance, does not add flowers in times of warmth and does not change its leaves in times of cold: it continues unfading through the four seasons, becomes increasingly stable as it passes through ease and danger.
Interpretation
True relationships endure through good and bad times.
The quote emphasizes that opportunistic relationships are superficial and unstable, while genuine connections with honorable individuals remain constant and resilient regardless of external circumstances. Such relationships thrive through both prosperous and challenging times, growing stronger and more stable as they weather life's seasons.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of true friendships during tough times.
To overcome the intelligent by folly is contrary to the natural order of things; to overcome the foolish by intelligence is in accord with the natural order. To overcome the intelligent by intelligence, however, is a matter of opportunity.
First organize the inner, then organize the outer ... First organize the great, then organize the small. First organize yourself, and then organize others.
Strength is but one aspect of power.
Good generals select intelligent officers, thoughtful advisors, and brave subordinates. They oversee their troops like a fierce tiger with wings.
Battles are not won by strength alone!
Nothing is harder to see into thanpeoples nature. The sage looks at subtle phenomena and listens tosmall voices. This harmonizes the outside with the inside and the inside with the outside.
Brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: I just can't believe everyone in here is a friend, and I don't want to leave anybody out.
Will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me becuase it so thoroughly teaches me that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and deed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ? The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting
Living together is an art. It's a patient art, it's a beautiful art, it's fascinating.
And I said to myself that he was the first thing that I had ever missed in my life.
Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.
I remembered the pain as clearly as if I were shifting — the pain of loss. I felt the agony of the single moment that I lost myself. Lost what made me Sam. The part of me that could remember Grace's name.
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