All we can do is to make the best of our friends, love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way what is bad.
Interpretation
We should appreciate and nurture the good qualities in our friends while avoiding their negative traits.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of valuing and cherishing the positive aspects of our friendships, suggesting that we focus on the goodness in our friends and try to minimize the impact of their flaws. It highlights the notion that relationships are built on appreciation and understanding, and that recognizing both strengths and weaknesses is key to maintaining strong connections.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of companionship, one could cite this quote to emphasize valuing friends.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.
Have no friends not equal to yourself.
There is nothing more becoming any wise man, than to make choice of friends, for by them thou shalt be judged what thou art: let them therefore be wise and virtuous, and none of those that follow thee for gain; but make election rather of thy betters, than thy inferiors.
There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.
I think that women definitely have a special bond as friends that is hard to describe to men, and we don't often see that portrayed narratively.
A melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realisation that you can't make old friends.
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