11. When devout people talk, what they say always makes sense, but foolish people are always contradicting themselves.
12. When you find yourself with stupid people, look for some excuse to leave, but when you are with serious-minded people, stay as long as you can.
13. The stories that foolish people tell are offensive, and they make jokes about the worst kinds of sin.
14. When such people curse, it is enough to make your hair stand on end, and when they start arguing among themselves, all you can do is to stop your ears.
15. It is painful to listen to them insult each other, and such blustering can lead to violence.
16. If you repeat secrets that have been told to you, you are destroying the confidence others have in you, and you will never have a close friend.
17. Respect your friends, and keep faith with them. If you do betray a friend's confidence, you may as well forget you have a friend.
18. You have killed that friendship just as surely as if you had taken a weapon and killed an enemy.
19. Your friend is gone. You can no more get him back than you can get a bird to come back to your hand once you let it go.