Lidik

“Now, what is the quality to look out for as a warrant for the stability and permanence of friendship? It is loyalty. Nothing that lacks this can be stable. We should also in making our selection look out for simplicity, a social disposition, and a sympathetic nature, moved by what moves us. These all contribute to maintain loyalty. You can never trust a character which is intricate and tortuous. Nor, indeed, is it possible for one to be trustworthy and firm who is unsympathetic by nature and unmoved by what affects ourselves. We may add, that he must neither take pleasure in bringing accusations against us himself, nor believe them when they are brought. All these contribute to form that constancy which I have been endeavouring to describe. And the result is, what I started by saying, that friendship is only possible between good men.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

“Who'd have thought our tracks
would cross again like this?
where's the time got to?
and why is life
so full of goodbyes?

as we part in the yard
roosters are crowing in the trees
and we cry a little
drunk and happy
tears threading our cheeks.”
― David Young, Five T'Ang Poets

“It was the rare girl who could resist that line, especially if she wasn’t all that hot to begin with. Blushes, giggles. All we needed to say then was “I’m out of your league, but what the hell,” and ten out of ten girls would spring out of their chairs and follow you to a secluded corner to do whatever you wanted.”
― Wang Shuo, Playing for Thrills

“It is not worth the trouble to talk to a man who has no respect for himself, and it is not worth the trouble to make a common effort with a man who has no confidence in himself. The former attacks morality; the latter says, "I do not think I am capable of abiding by benevolence or of following rightness." Benevolence is man's peaceful abode and rightness his proper path. It is indeed lamentable for anyone not to live in his peaceful abode and not to follow his proper path.”
― Mencius, Mencius