Friendship is a feeling of love and affection of one person for another. This feeling of love must be reciprocated. Otherwise friendship cannot be possible. Friendship does not exist where tastes, feelings and sentiments are not similar.
The famous essayist Bacon has warned against the friendship between a very rich person and a very poor person. Economic disparity damages friendship. Thus friendship is a feeling of affection between two likeminded persons of uniform status.
It is said that a friend in need is a friend in deed. There may be many friends at the time of prosperity. But most of them desert at the time of adversity. We can examine the sincerity of a friend during our time of hardship and trouble. Only a sincere and faithful friend remains with us at the time of our trouble. All others leave us. It is very painful when our friends turn traitors.
Money is an enemy of friendship. Everybody has an attraction for money. When lending or borrowing of money is done between two friends, there is great risk. Friendship may be affected. So it is wise for true friends to avoid monetary transaction. Vanity is another element which breaks friendship. Everybody has self-respect. When a person tries to criticise his friend, their friendship is affected. So friendship must be treated very delicately.
Very often some hypocrites pretend to be friends. They are more dangerous than avowed enemies. By telling soft words they bring enormous ruin to us. A true friend never exploits. He rather surrenders. But at present, the meaning of friendship has changed.
There are many fair-weathered friends. They terminate their friendly tie as soon as their interests are fulfilled. It is very difficult to find a true friend today. It is better to establish true friendship with either a dog or an elephant. Both these beasts will remain faithful to their human friends. Today, friendship between two persons is short-lived.
Good friends exercise good influence. They always help their friends, in distress and inspire them to walk on the right path. But evil friends ruin us completely.
