Tuesday, December 12, 2006
4:03 PM
A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs,
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
Conversation is an evanescent relation, no more. A man is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say a word to his cousin or his uncle. Among those who enjoy his thought, he will regain his tongue.
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. You shall not come nearer a man by getting into his house. If unlike, his soul only flees the faster from you, and you shall never catch a true glance of his eye.
We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.
But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, souls are now acting, enduring, and daring, which can love us, and which we can love.
Only be admonished by what you already see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship can be. By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little you gain the great.
The lover, beholding his maiden, half knows that she is not verily that which he worships; and in the golden hour of friendship, we are surprised with shades of suspicion and unbelief. We doubt that we bestow on our hero the virtues in which he shines, and afterwards worship the form to which we have ascribed this divine inhabitation.
In strictness, the soul does not respect men as it respects itself.
It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away.
It is thought a disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited.
True love transcends the unworthy object, and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
According to Oleg Kharkhordin, in Soviet society, friendships were "a suspect value for the Stalinist regime" in that they presented a stronger allegiance that could stand in possible opposition to allegiance to the Communist party.
"By definition, a friend was an individual who would not let you down even under direct menace to him- or herself; a person to whom one could securely entrust one's controversial thoughts since he or she would never betray them, even under pressure.
Friendship thus in a sense became an ultimate value produced in resistance struggles in the Soviet Union".
In Ancient Greece, in a text in defence of pederasty, Plato asserts: "the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience;
for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power."
Friendship as a type of interpersonal relationship is found also among animals with high intelligence, such as the higher mammals and some birds. Cross-species friendships are common between humans and domestic animals.
Less common but noteworthy are friendships between an animal and another animal of a different species, such as a dog and cat.
Bid me crew avast! Keep yer banner high
Classed, forever a class :)
Class of our own
Wind be at yer backs, sails never slackin'
