Friends of the house are very rightly so called; because they are friends of the house rather than of its master; in other words, they are more like cats than dogs.
Your friends will tell you that they are sincere; your enemies are really so. Let your enemies' censure be like a bitter medicine, to be used as a means of self-knowledge.
A friend in need, as the saying goes, is rare. Nay, it is just the contrary; no sooner have you made a friend than he is in need, and asks for a loan.
SECTION 34. A man must be still a greenhorn in the ways of the
world, if he imagines that he can make himself popular in society by exhibiting intelligence and discernment. With the immense majority of people, such qualities excite hatred and resentment, which are rendered all the harder to bear by the fact that people are obliged to suppress—even from themselves—the real reason of their anger.
What actually takes place is this. A man feels and perceives that the person with whom he is conversing is intellectually very much his superior.[40]