Historical voices

This is why true friendship is very difficult to find among those who engage in politics and the contest for office.

It is not in human nature to be indifferent to political power; and if the price men have to pay for it is the sacrifice of friendship, they think their treason will be thrown into the shade by the magnitude of the reward.

It may often happen that the untrustworthiness of certain men is completely displayed in a small money matter; others who are proof against a small sum are detected if it be large.

If we are prudent then, we shall rein in our impulse to affection as we do chariot horses.

We must by no means abjure virtue, which secures us affection.

And yet we must not be entirely careless of our reputation, nor regard the good opinion of our fellow-citizens as a weapon which we can afford to despise in conducting the business of our life, however lowering it may be to tout for it by…

Then if the case arises of a friend's wish (not strictly right in itself) calling for support in a matter involving his life or reputation, we must make some concession from the straight path--on condition, that is to say, that extreme…

The real limit to be observed in friendship is this: the characters of two friends must be stainless.

The true rule is to take such care in the selection of our friends as never to enter upon a friendship with a man whom we could under any circumstances come to hate.

This maxim, then, let it be whose it will, is the utter destruction of friendship.

How can a man be friends with another, if he thinks it possible that he may be his enemy?

But the last limit proposed is the worst, namely, that a friend's estimate of himself is to be the measure of our estimate of him.

True friendship appears to me to be something richer and more generous than that comes to; and not to be so narrowly on its guard against giving more than it receives.

But such a view reduces friendship to a question of figures in a spirit far too narrow and illiberal, as though the object were to have an exact balance in a debtor and creditor account.

There are many advantages too which men of upright character voluntarily forego, or of which they are content to be deprived, that their friends may enjoy them rather than themselves.

The first, which holds that our regard for ourselves is to be the measure of our regard for our friend, is not true; for how many things there are which we would never have done for our own sakes, but do for the sake of a friend!

And even if those possessions, which are, in a manner, the gifts of fortune, do prove permanent, life can never be anything but joyless which is without the consolations and companionship of friends.

Men who before had pleasant manners enough undergo a complete change on attaining power of office.

They are carried, so to speak, beyond themselves with self-conceit and self-will; nor can anything be more perfectly intolerable than a successful fool.

For not only is Fortune blind herself; but she generally makes those blind also who enjoy her favours.

Who can love one whom he fears, or by whom he knows that he is feared?

For who, in heaven's name, would choose a life of the greatest wealth and abundance on condition of neither loving or being beloved by any creature?

And so far from its being true that lack of means is a motive for seeking friendship, it is usually those who being most richly endowed with wealth and means, and above all with virtue (which, after all, is a man's best support), are least…

For it is not so much what one gets by a friend that gives one pleasure, as the warmth of his feeling; and we only care for a friend's service if it has been prompted by affection.