When the strong box contains no more both friends and flatterers shun the door.
Interpretation
True friends are those who stay by your side regardless of your wealth or status.
This quote by Plutarch highlights the idea that many people are drawn to wealth and status rather than true friendship. When someone loses their riches, those who were only interested in them for their fortune may abandon them, while genuine friends remain steadfast, revealing the true nature of relationships based on sincerity rather than materialism.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of loyalty, one might reference this quote.
Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.
Come back with your shield - or on it
The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.
For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real
When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.
Everything is connected. Surfing is a solitary sport. But I can tell you that some of the most amazing things I've done surfing have come from being a part of a tribe.
We are one in Christ; let us be friends with one another; but let us never be friends with one anotherβs error. If I be wrong, rebuke me sternly; I can bear it, and bear it cheerfully; and if ye be wrong, expect the like measure from me, and neither peace nor parley with your mistakes.
Here and there, human nature may be great in times of trial, but generally speaking it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a sick chamber; it is selfishness and impatience rather than generosity and fortitude, that one hears of. There is so little real friendship in the world! β and unfortunately' (speaking low and tremulously) 'there are so many who forget to think seriously till it is almost too late.
Verily, great grace may go with a little gift; and precious are all things that come from a friend.
The eye of perfected friendship with God is aware of deeper dimensions of reality, to which the eyes of the average man and the average Christian are not yet opened.
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