“This communicating of a man’s selfe to his friends works two contrarie effects; for it redoubleth joies and cutteth griefes in halfes. For there is no man that imparteth his joies to his friend but he grieveth the less. . . . Certain it is that whosoever has his minde fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do break up and clarifie in the communicating and discoursing with another. He tosseth his thoughts more easily, he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words, finally he waxeth wiser than himselfe, and that more by an houre’s discourse than by a day’s meditation. . . . Neither is this second fruit of friendship in opening the understanding restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsell (they indeed are best); but even without that, a man learneth of himselfe, and brigeth his owne thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone which itselfe cuts not. In a word, a man were better to relate himselfe to a statue or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to passe in smother. . . . I have given the rule where a man cannot fitly play his own part, if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.”
BACON
"Thus fortune’s pleasant fruits by friends increased be;
The bitter, sharp and sour by friends allayed to thee;
That when thou dost rejoice, then doubled is thy joy;
And eke in cause of care, the less is thy annoy.”
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