“Affection Opens Our Eyes”
The truly wide taste in humanity will similarly find something to appreciate in the cross-section of humanity whom one has to meet every day. In my experience it is Affection that creates this taste, teaching us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate, the people who ‘happen to be there.’...Affection can love the unattractive: God and His saints love the unlovable. Affection...turns a blind eye to faults, revives easily after quarrels...Affection opens our eye to goodness we could not have seen, or should not have appreciated without it.”
C.S. Lewis
"Deck The Halls"
The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it. There is no event greater in life than the appearance of new persons about our hearth...
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Not Good Enough For Evil Companions"
I am inclined to think a Christian would be wise to avoid, where he decently can, any meeting with people who are bullies, lascivious, cruel, dishonest, spiteful, and so forth. Not because we are ‘too good’ for them. In a sense because we are not good enough. We are not good enough to cope with all the temptations, nor clever enough to cope with all the problems, which an evening spent in such society produces. The temptation is to condone, to connive at; by our word, looks and laughter, to 'consent'...We shall hear vile stories told as funny; not merely licentious stories but (to me far more serious and less noticed) stories which the teller could not be telling unless he was betraying someone’s confidence. We shall hear infamous detraction of the absent, often disguised as pity or humor. Things we hold sacred will be mocked.
C.S. Lewis
Higher Loyalties
Loyalty is a noble quality, so long as it is not blind and does not exclude the higher loyalty to truth and decency.
H.H. Liddell Hart
H.H. Liddell Hart
"Friendship Affection"
Friendship, affection is not acquired by giving presents. Friendship, affection comes about by two people sharing a significant moment, by having an experience in common.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
“The Feast of Christian Friendship”
A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.’ can truly say to every group of Christian friends “You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.’ The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others...They are, like all others, derived from Him, and then, in a good Friendship, increased by Him through the Friendship itself, so that it is His instrument for creating as well as for revealing. At this feast it is He who has spread the board and it is He who has chosen the guests.
C.S. Lewis
"Being Sharpened Tops Being Patted"
Approve not of him who commends all you say
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
"The Universe Is Relational"
The most profound thing we know about the universe is that it is relational. Before anything existed, there was relationship. One day God, for His own reasons, wanted to share the throbbing, pulsating joy of it beyond the frontiers of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and so created us. And He made us to be like Him. For better, when there is someone near. For worse, when there is not.
Andree Seu
Andree Seu
"Friendship 101"
Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in a common interest...true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth...Friendship exhibits a glorious "nearness by resemblance" to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each has of God...Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden)...The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends...Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travelers...If, at the outset, we had attended more to him and less to the thing our Friendship is "about", we should not have come to know or love him so well. You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him."
C.S. Lewis
"Friendship"
Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.
Eustace Budgell