Mark Oshinskie on coronamania and friendship

I don’t worry about alienating some people.  The Scamdemic has been the kind of experience during which you learn about others’ character, mental health & critical thinking ability.  You weed your garden.  You plant new seeds. 

~ Mark Oshinskie, "Mocking Coronamania," LewRockwell.com, December 14, 2021

Henry Ford on friendship

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me. 

~ Henry Ford

Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and 
Harvey Firestone

Kevin Duffy: Do politics and friendship mix?

The quantity and quality of friendships will be limited by scarcity: our time, resources and emotional energy.  E.g. narcissists are high maintenance and crowd out other friendships.  Friendships grow deeper and stronger, moving up the ladder, or weaker and more superficial, sometimes to the point of falling off the ladder completely and being displaced by new friendships. 

For an activist libertarian (as opposed to a retreatist), deep relationships require a strong philosophical bond.  At times like today, where society is hurtling towards authoritarianism and "friends" are joining the crowd and revealing their true colors, friendships are being put to the test and in much greater flux.

~ Kevin Duffy, comment on The Tom Woods Show, March 30, 2021

Gad Saad on joining the battle of ideas

That's a concern that I often receive from people. They write to me, "Hey, professor. I really want to get engaged. But... I'm not some fancy professor. I don't have a large audience." And I tell them, "Look. It's trench warfare. Right? It's house-to-house. It's trench-to-trench. Some of us have big platforms. Great, we use that. But you don't have to have a big platform to contribute to the battle of ideas. Your professor says something that is insane, challenge them politely. Someone says something on Facebook that you disagree with, engage them politely. You hear something happening at the pub that you think you might weigh in on? Don't refrain from doing so.  And usually there's a couple of reasons why people refrain from doing so.

"Well, if I weigh in, I might lose their friendship." Well, guess what? If their friendship is not sufficiently anti-fragile - to use my friend's Nassim Taleb's point... if our friendship is not sufficiently anti-fragile that it could withstand the stressors of us disagreeing about some important point, then you know what? Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.  I don't need friends like that.  I prefer to have two really good friends that I can have deep meaningly conversations with than a bunch of cowardly castrated morons who are going to be completely triggered because I say something that is contrary to them.

~ Gad Saad, "How Infectious Ideas are Killing Common Sense," 41:15 mark, Stansberry Investor Hour, October 8, 2020

Benjamin Franklin on how to behave

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all others, charity.

~ Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin
1912-1914

Anais Nin on friendship

What I cannot love, I overlook. Is that real friendship?

~ Anais Nin

Nassim Taleb on friendship

Friendship that ends was never one; there was at least one sucker in it.

~ Nassim Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes, p. 15