Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us except the very thing we wish them to do. There is one thing in particular they are always disposed to give us, and which we are as unwilling to take, namely, advice.
—Hazlitt
There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship, and indeed friendship itself is only a part of virtue.
—Pope
There are three friendships which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. Friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere, and friendship with the man of observation: these are advantageous. Friendship with the man of specious airs; friendship with the insinuatingly soft, and friendship with the glib of tongue: these are injurious.
—Confucius
A generous friendship no cold medium knows,
Burns with one love, with one resentment glows;
One should our interests and our passions be,
My friend must hate the man that injures me.
—Homer (Pope’s Tr.)
My friend is that one whom I can associate with my choicest thought.
—Henry D. Thoreau
Go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.