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“Fair weather friends are not worth much.”
Friendship that exists only while circumstances are easy has little value when loyalty is actually tested by difficulty.
Source note: Moral printed after “The Swallow and the Crow” in the Townsend translation of the fables.
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“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”
The maxim pairs careful choice before commitment with tolerance afterward, compressing a practical relationship philosophy into a comic contrast.
Source note: Poor Richard’s Almanack; a marital maxim later repeated in discussions of Franklin’s proverbial advice.
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“Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.”
Good relationships can improve judgment and character through challenge, conversation, and mutual influence.
Source note: Proverbs 15:1 in the King James Version; the proverb contrasts a soft answer with speech that intensifies wrath.
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“Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go:”
The proverb treats repeated fury as socially contagious, warning that close association can shape habits and judgment.
Source note: Proverbs 22:24 in the King James Version; the next verse warns that a person can learn the ways of the habitually angry.
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“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”
Companions shape judgment and habits, so choosing relationships also means choosing some of the influences that shape a life.
Source note: Proverbs 13:20, King James Version.
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“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”
Voice: Fictional character · Mr. Bennet
Mr. Bennet’s joke treats social observation as reciprocal: everyone is somebody else’s entertainment, including the people doing the laughing.
Source note: Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 57; Mr. Bennet comments on the absurd rumour concerning Elizabeth and Darcy.