"Judge not thy friend until thou standest in his place."
Rabbi Hillel.
"Criticism often takes from the tree caterpillars and blossoms together."
AUGUST 14
"There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason why either should be first named. One is Truth ... the other is Tenderness."
Emerson.
"The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.... A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud."
Emerson.
"People do not sufficiently remember that in every relation of life, as in the closest one of all, they ought to take one another 'for better for worse.' That, granting the tie of friendship, gratitude, esteem, be strong enough to have existed at all, it ought, either actively or passively, to exist for ever. And seeing we can at best know our neighbour, companion, or friend as little, as alas! we often find he knoweth of us, it behoveth us to trust him with the most patient fidelity, the tenderest forbearance; granting unto all his words and actions that we do not understand, the utmost limit of faith that common sense and Christian justice will allow. Nay, these failing, is there not left Christian charity? which being past believing and hoping, still endureth all things."