Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to
the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the
personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another
man’s character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation
of another person’s virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one’s own
selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one
deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one
marries an ideal woman or a slut. In spiritual issues, a trader is a man who
does not seek to be loved for his weaknesses or flaws, only for his virtues,
and who does not grant his love to the weaknesses or the flaws of others, only
to their virtues.