Firstly, a huge hat-tip to Rob Firchau at The Hammock Papers for this delicious rabbit hole.

Rob quotes part of a letter from Chekhov to his older, artist (and dissolute) brother in which he upbraids him on his behaviour. It includes the Latin, veritas magis amicitiae, from which my pitiful command of the language extracted “truth” and “friend(ship?)” and maybe possibly “magic” … which seemed unlikely.

Therefore, from the first chamber of the burrow, I can report the phrase comes from “Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas” which, attributed to Aristotle, literally means, “Plato is my friend, but truth is a greater/better friend.” Effectively, truth is greater, or more important, than friendship.

Deeper down the rabbit hole (over at The Marginalian, which I hadn’t visited in ages), I find a fuller rendering of Chekhov’s letter where he lists the eight qualities of “cultured” or decent people. Check them out in full, well worth reading, but in summary:

1. They respect human personality, and therefore they are always kind, gentle, polite, and ready to [accommodate] others.
2. They have sympathy not for beggars and cats alone. Their heart aches for what the eye does not see… They sit up at night in order to help P., to pay for brothers at the University, and to buy clothes for their mother.
3. They respect the property of others, and therefore pay their debts.
4. They are sincere, and dread lying like fire. They don’t lie even in small things. A lie is insulting to the listener and puts him in a lower position in the eyes of the speaker. …Out of respect for other people’s ears they more often keep silent than talk.
5. They do not disparage themselves to rouse compassion.
6. They have no shallow vanity. They do not care for such false diamonds as knowing celebrities…
7. If they have a talent they respect it. They sacrifice to it rest, women, wine, vanity… They are proud of their talent… Besides, they are fastidious.
8. They develop the aesthetic feeling in themselves. They cannot go to sleep in their clothes, see cracks full of bugs on the walls, breathe bad air, walk on a floor that has been spat upon, cook their meals over an oil stove.

Signing off, Chekhov tells his brother, “You must drop your vanity, you are not a child.”