Treason and False Friends Friendship, Love and Family
There are many references to treason in friendship. The
terms of these statements are harsh, following bitter
disillusions:
I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about
him, there would not be four friends in the world.
Pascal. Thoughts
Our friends, the enemy.
Pierre-Jean de Béranger;
Chansons de Bérenger
But is human friendship as negative as that portrayed by
Pascal or Béranger?
Treasons and false friends exist, obviously. But we should also recognize that there are many
reasons that can put an end to our friendships, without them
being exactly treason.
We change. Our ideas, our tastes, our interests change. And
that can also change the weight and the meaning of some of
our friendships. It can be fatal to them. Pascal recognizes
it in what concerns love:
He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I
quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He
was young, and she also; she is quite different. He would
perhaps love her yet, if she were what she was then.
Pascal, Thoughts
On the other hand, our family space may grow, which can also
be lethal: when the place of the couple’s love is big, there
is no time or availability to nourish many friendships. Look
at Aristotle’s words:
Those who are friends of everybody, are nobody’s friends
Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics
It’s a fatality. We can’t multiply our friendships, just as we
can’t multiply our loves. The time and the availability we
dispose are scarce to feed too many friendships or loves. What
we dedicate to someone may well miss to others. The dedication
and the communication we devote to our loves are in opposition
with friendships. And conversely.
It isn’t an absolute rule, but it happens beyond some bounds:
the number of friends and friendships grows when the family or
couple’s love fails or is in crisis. And vice-versa. Many
friendship failures, or what we may consider treasons, may well
be born from this incompatibility. It’s not necessarily an
intentional fact or a treason nourished by our weakness or by
any evil side of ours.
The greater friendships may persist, and resist the attacks of
the many life appeals. When St. Jerome states that «a friendship
that may cease isn’t a great one», we have to admit his words.
But current friendships rarely have the weight and the dimension
St. Jerome is presupposing. And that’s why they may be lost or
diminished by current facts of living.
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Quotations
Humour on Friendship
That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends
are true and our happiness is assured.
Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914, American writer, The Cynic’s Word
Book
There are three faithful friends — an old wife, an old dog, and
ready money.
Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American physicist and politician,
Poor Richard's Almanack
To find a friend, one must close one eye; to keep him, two.
Norman Douglas, 1868-1952, Scottish writer, Almanac
A person who starts being friends with you because it pays him,
will similarly cease to be friends because it pays him to do so.
Seneca, 4 a.C.-65 d. C., Roman philosopher and politician,
Letters to Luccilius
I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you
like best; they are merely the people who got there first.
Peter Ustinov, actor and writer, Dear Me
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Cultural Stuff on
friendship, sex, politics? See
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Love and Friendship? See also:
Friendship, shared joy,
love, conviviality
Friendship,
lovers and sex
Friendship in Literature
and Philosophy
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