Character and Conduct – 18 August – Friendship

AND though Aristotle does well to warn us that absence dissolves friendship, it is happily none the less true that friend may powerfully influence friend though the two be by no means constant associates.

Even far removal in place, or in occupation, or in fortunes, cannot arrest influence.  For once any man has true friends, he never again frames his decisions, even those that are most secret, as if he were alone in the world.   He frames them habitually in the imagined company of his friends.   In their visionary presence he thinks and acts;  and by them, as visionary tribunal, he feels himself, even in his unspoken intentions and inmost feelings, to be judged.   In this aspect friendship may become a supreme force both to encourage and restrain.   For it is not simply what our friends expect of us that is the vital matter here.   They are often more tolerant of our failings than is perhaps good for us.   It is what in our best moments we believe that they expect of us.   For it is then that they become to us, not of their own choice but of ours, a kind of second conscience, in whose presence our weaknesses and backslidings become ‘that worst kind of sacrilege that tears down the invisible altar of trust.’

The Making of Character, Professor MAcCUNN

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These quotes are from ‘Character and Conduct’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1905 as a follow up to her volume of Daily Readings for members of the Being and Doing Guild who asked for an additional volume

In her preface Whishaw writes:

‘This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it.’

It is my hope in publishing them here readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.