"I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better."
"By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?" What more valuable for the elevation of our own character?"
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Source: Plutarch (2012). “Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Complete”, p.330, Simon and Schuster
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