on friendships
“Everyone must try to make friendship his own utopian country in which no inequalities exist,
where the coin of the realm is imaginative sympathy,
all competition and rivalrous feelings are strictly outlawed,
the oxygen is considerate talk,
and the blood circulates best when stimulated by the constant exercise of thoughtfulness, generous impulse, and kindness. The earnest practice of friendship, in short, requires us to be rather better than most of the time we really are.”
- Joseph Epstein in Friendship: An Expose.
Scot McKnight offers a wonderful post on friendships
2 comments:
Stephen, this is an excellent description of friendship. I think it, in many ways, describes the "ordinary attempts" at care, interest, attention, and compassion that we write about. Find us at http://www.ordinaryattempts.org.
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