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Misunderstood friendships: Aristotle on why we get hurt

Published on May 25, 2026

Friendships are among life’s great gifts, but also a frequent source of pain. The cause is often subtler than betrayal or distance: two people thinking they're in the same kind of friendship when they aren’t. Aristotle named three kinds of friendships—understanding them is the first step to avoid getting hurt.
Topics: Friendship Relationships
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Today’s most popular essays

See which of our essays that are catching our readers’ attention today:
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    Published on Mar 28, 2026
  2. The Pareto principle, properly understood
    Published on Apr 18, 2026
  3. The joy of anticipation
    Published on May 2, 2026
  4. Predictable defeat: When starting a war is a strategic blunder
    Published on Mar 21, 2026
  5. Aristotle’s tools for clear thinking
    Published on May 14, 2026

Editor’s pick: Quote

A quote worth reflecting on today:

“The law of nature is, do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.”

 Ralph Waldo Emerson
✓ Verified quote (primary source)
Topics: Cause and Effect Nature Power Law Action
More about this quote → More about Ralph Waldo Emerson →

Today’s most popular quotes

What our readers are viewing right now:

  1. To see a world in a grain of sand
    And a heaven in a wild flower,
    Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
    And eternity in an hour.

    — William Blake Primary source

  2. “Invert, always invert”

    — Charlie Munger Primary source

  3. “It is never hopeless. But sometimes I cannot hope. I try always to hope but sometimes I cannot.”

    — Ernest Hemingway Primary source

  4. “Less, but better.”

    — Dieter Rams Primary source

  5. “Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

    — Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source

Today’s most popular topics

What’s catching our readers’ attention:
  1. Attention to details
  2. Get rich quick
  3. Great Depression
  4. Artificial Intelligence
  5. World War II

Editor’s pick: Interview

Our daily recommendation for the curious reader:

Playboy Interview: Bill Gates

by Bill Gates, David Rensin (interviewer) (1994)

The Playboy interview captures the 38-year-old CEO at a pivotal moment: newly married to Melinda French, presiding over a company whose MS-DOS ran on roughly 90% of the world’s PCs, and facing a Justice Department antitrust inquiry that had picked up where a three-year FTC investigation left off.
Topics: Business Fear Crisis
More about this book → More about Bill Gates →

Today’s most popular reads

See what our readers are picking up:
  1. Poor Charlie’s Almanack
    by Charlie Munger (compiled by Peter D. Kaufman)
  2. Either/Or
    by Søren Kierkegaard
  3. Ideas and Opinions
    by Albert Einstein
  4. Beauty
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  5. The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
    by Ayn Rand (Author), Harry Binswanger (Editor)

Today’s most popular minds

The thinkers our readers are curious about today:
  1. Arnold J. Toynbee
    English historian
  2. Gerald Heard
    Historian and science writer
  3. A.P. Møller
    Founder of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group
  4. Abraham Lincoln
    President of the United States
  5. Ralph Waldo Emerson
    American essayist, poet, philosopher

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