The quote database

In such cases friendships should be allowed to die out gradually by an intermission of intercourse.

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief.

There is nothing to which nature seems so much to have inclined us, as to society

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

a man should, at the first approaches, favour their grief and express some approbation of their sorrow

Your heart is wounded with compassion to hear the mourning of friends, and, perhaps with anger, to hear the counterfeit condolings of pretenders.

We sought one another long before we met, and by the characters we heard of one another

Whereas in friendship, 'tis a general and universal fire, but temperate and equal, a constant established heat, all gentle and smooth, without poignancy or roughness.

Men who are successful always seek the company of others who are successful, while men who are on the ragged side of life always seek the company of those who are in similar circumstances.

this vice of ingratitude has its source either in avarice or in suspicion

a prince should entrust his friends with so much authority only as leaves a certain interval between his position and theirs

The prince, therefore, who would guard himself against plots, ought more to fear those men to whom he has been too indulgent, than those to whom he has done great wrongs.

Moreover men commonly deceive themselves in respect of the love which they imagine others bear them, nor can ever be sure of it until they have put it to the proof.

In love there is no first nor last!

a friend should be like money tried before being required, not found faulty in our need

Now the discourse that ought to come from friends and people disposed to be helpful should be consolation, and not mere assent with a man's sad feelings.

not to find friends at a time when you want them is hard, as also not to be able to exchange an inconstant and bad friend for a constant and good one

Whereas among real friends there is no rivalry or jealousy of one another, but they are satisfied and contented alike whether they are equal or one of them is superior.

we ought to give our friend pain if it will benefit him, but not to the extent of breaking off our friendship; but just as we make use of some biting medicine, that will save and preserve the life of the patient

freedom in speech is friendly and has weight, but reproach is selfish and little

It is better therefore to listen patiently to a friend's rebuke, for if he should afterwards do wrong himself and so need rebuke, he has set you the example of freedom of speech.

intimacy is the full enjoyment of friendship, and most pleasant is companying with and spending the day with a friend

Whereas having many friends puts people apart and severs and disunites them, by transferring and shifting the tie of friendship too frequently, and does not admit of a mixture and welding of goodwill by the diffusing and compacting of intimacy.

Might not someone jeer at us in the same way, as being afraid, when we have not yet one firm friendship, that we shall without knowing it fall upon an abundance of friends?