The most genuine friendship comes from the instantaneous appreciation of silence, and also knowing when to speak. An hours silent companionship with someone with whom that bedrock has been reached is enough to make you feel wholly refreshed as though you had had the best dialogue of your life.

Honesty can be used as a reason for causing pain unnecessarily. Compassionate honesty speaks truth with attention to doing it in a way that is easily experienced by the hearer. Even your intimate friends have requirement s and ways they can hear better than others, so knowing and respecting those is certainly a part of true friendship, no?

FInally, even the best of friendships can wax and wane and change in the way of all things; it is not easy to learn to celebrate that face of things as well. But it is probably necessary to happiness.

A