Cyril Connolly is about to define friendships that last. Well, many have. But he is about to go a step further and apply his definition, which will tell us who among us cannot have lasting friendships, and why more women have lasting friendships than men:
The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other’s dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him. Therefore a man with a will to power can have no friends. He is like a boy with a chopper. He tries it on flowers, he tries it on sticks, he tries it on furniture, and at last he breaks it on a stone. (Quoted from Cyril Connolly’s commonplace book, The Unquiet Grave, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1945, p.17. Connolly wrote it under his pen name, Palinurus.)
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For a brief biography of Cyril Connolly, click here.
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