So my latest literary outing was a re-read of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”. While, there are tons of reviews that do a great job of comparing Huxley’s Brave New World with Orwells 1984 and our current surveillance state, there is one short passage from late in the book, that resonated with me this read through.

One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.

In the midst of a long essay on the dangers of giving ourselves over to technological advances, this quote is hidden and is, I think, one of the better, albeit more cynical, descriptions of friendship I have read.