How to benefit from your enemies followed by: How to distinguish between a flatterer and a friend - Plutarch

Human nature is one, constant across times and places. This is what these two texts prove to Plutarch, that Greek thinker who felt the need, since his time, to help his contemporaries to “benefit from their enemies” and to “distinguish between the sycophant and the friend.” Plutarch reveals to us, in this interesting book, where humor, anecdotes, legend, and history mix, all the tricks of flattery, and teaches us to beware of sweetened praise, adulterated frankness, and hypocritical friends. Rather, it goes so far as to prove the benefit of the enemies, who push us to be careful, and this is an incentive for us to develop ourselves and achieve the best version of ourselves, which, in the end, constitutes the best response and the noblest revenge that we can face the opponents. These illuminating pages, written centuries ago, still retain their complete relevance, and that is the best evidence of their relevance, accuracy, and wisdom.

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