—Helvetius
One of the surest evidences of friendship that one individual can display to another is telling him gently of a fault. If any other can excel it, it is listening to such a disclosure with gratitude, and amending the error.
—Bulwer-Lytton
We never exchange more than three words with a Friend in our lives on that level to which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually rise.
—Henry D. Thoreau
If thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him; for some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble. And there is a friend who, being turned to enmity and strife, will discover thy reproach. Again, some friend is a companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of thine affliction.
—The Book of Ecclesiasticus
Friendship is a pact where one balances faults and qualities. One can judge a friend, take account of what is good, neglect what is evil, and appreciate exactly his value, in abandoning one’s self to an intimate, profound and charming sympathy.
—Guy de Maupassant
Everyone can have a friend
Who himself knows how to be a friend.
—Old Saying