So I was pondering that saying the other day and went back and read the whole speech from Hamlet. It’s Polonius talking to his son Laertes on the occasion of his departure to foreign lands

Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for.
There ... my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade.  Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

	-- William Shakespeare

Several of the lines struck me as really good advice.

“Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; …” When the shit hits the fan if you have chosen wisely your friends are all you have. You let them drift away from you at your own peril.

“Give every man thy ear,  but few thy voice; …”  The world would be a better place if more people took this advice.

“And above all: To thine own self be true… ” If I had followed this my life would have been happier.

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