PROSPERITY gets friends but adversity tries them

Insights

Testing True Friendship

The proverb uses prosperity and adversity as metaphors for ease and hardship to show that the value of friendship is not proven in good times, but revealed and tested when fortune turns.

Superficiality Versus Loyalty

It highlights the difference between fair-weather friends—drawn by advantage or pleasure—and true friends who remain steadfast through trials and loss.

Touchstone of Character

Adversity is depicted as a touchstone that distinguishes genuine connection from opportunism, mirroring the way gold is tested for authenticity.

Historical and Literary Context

Since antiquity, thinkers and writers have noted that wealth and success attract companions, but hardship reveals their loyalty. Shakespeare and others echoed this wisdom, emphasizing how prosperity is the 'bond of love'—but adversity its proof.

Psychological and Social Dynamics

The proverb points to a universal social truth: the desire for association with the fortunate, and the tendency for relationships to dissolve under strain. It encourages skepticism toward relationships founded solely on circumstance.

Moral Lesson

The saying serves as a caution and a comfort: loss and hardship, while painful, have the benefit of clarifying which relationships are sincere and valuable.

Rhetorical Devices

Antithesis

Juxtaposes prosperity and adversity, getting and trying, friends and true friends, creating a memorable and pointed contrast.

Metaphor

Uses metaphors of testing (as with gold or a touchstone) to illustrate the process by which adversity reveals genuine friendship.

Parallel Structure

The balanced, mirrored phrasing makes the proverb easily memorable and rhetorically powerful.