Think for a long time whether or not you should admit a given person to your friendship. But when you have decided to do so, welcome him heart and soul, and speak as unreservedly with him as you would with yourself.
Every day should be regulated as if it were the one that rounds out and completes our lives, saying in all joyfulness as we retire to our beds:
I have lived; I have completed now the course that fortune long ago alloted me.
Whoever has said it receives a windfall every morning.
'Hell, here I am in misery when I might be back in the Lyceum sunning myself.' Is that your job, sunning yourself? Isn't it rather to be happy, unflappable and equal to every occasion?
I have a bad neighbour - bad, that is, for himself. For me, though, he is good: he exercises my powers of fairness and sociability. The wand of Hermes promises that 'whatever you touch will turn to gold'.