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  ...have the same social status, so that they may live at ease together and have congenial tastes. They must further have enough community of occupation and gifts to give each an appreciation of the other's faculty; for qualities are not complementary unless they are qualities of the same substance. Nothing must be actual in either friend that is not potential in the other.
[Sidenote: Identity in sex required.]
For this reason, among others, friends are generally of the same sex, for When men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions; their reasons are always different.   So that while intellectual harmony between men and women is easily possible, its delightful and magic quality lies precisely in the fact that it does not arise from mutual understanding, but is a conspiracy of alien essences and a kissing, as it were, in the dark. As man's body differs from woman's in sex and strength, so his mind differs from hers in quality and function: they can co-operate but can never fuse. The human race, in its intellectual life, is organised like the bees: the...   Santayana, George

Excerpt from The Life of Reason · This quote is tagged Men and Women · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

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