A loan transforms, in an instant, a horizontal relationship between friends into a vertical one between creditor and debtor. And few people can endure, for long, looking up at someone they once regarded as an equal.
Whoever chooses to lend should do so as the ancient Greeks cast coins into the sea as an offering—not expecting to recover them, but trusting in the meaning of the sacrifice itself. Lend only what you can afford to lose, knowing that, in time, such an act will reveal the true character of the friendship. For human nature is fashioned this way: weak in the face of its own convenience. Few are capable of bearing the weight of an obligation without, deep down, wishing to free themselves from it—and from the one to whom they owe it.
Resentment is born more readily from ingratitude than from debt.
Yet do not count as a lasting loss the money that drove away a man who could not keep his word. Few losses are as profitable as being rid of a false friend.
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