Sundays with Seneca
Welcome to Sundays with Seneca on the Perennial Meditations podcast. Join the search for ancient lessons on the art of living from Lucius Annaeus Seneca's writings and Stoic philosophy.
Seneca — The Art of Friendship
In a letter known today as On True and False Friendship, Seneca wrote,
You have sent a letter to me through the hand of a “friend” of yours, as you call him. And in your very next sentence, you warn me not to discuss with him all the matters that concern you, saying that even you yourself are not accustomed to do this; in other words, you have in the same letter affirmed and denied that he is your friend.
Now if you used this word of ours in the popular sense and called him “friend” in the same way in which we speak of all candidates for election as “honorable gentlemen” and as we greet all men whom we meet casually, if their names slip us for the moment, with the salutation “my dear sir”—so be it. But if you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken, and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means. Indeed, I would have you discuss everything with a friend, but first of all, discuss the man himself. When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment. […]
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