On the* most important people in the world**

If you make friends with good people, good friendships follow almost without any effort.


*Just because you can't really publish any papers starting "On the..." in my field, and it's always been a source of disappointment to me!
**Some people would contest that the most important people in the world are family, not friends. I disagree entirely. Just because someone shares some genetic similarity to me does not mean that they are worthy of respect; I have relatives (not immediate family, but not very distant relations either) who have progressed beyond "zero respect" into active disapproval. It is true that the most important people to me are my immediate family, but that is a distinction that they have had to earn - and admittedly, they have been given the opportunity to earn it over a period of multiple decades, but it is by no means granted automatically. I think it is testament to the quality of my friends that some of them get close to the level of respect that I have for my immediate family, despite the fact that (with one exception) I have known them for less than a single decade.