Friendship will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.
—Robert Wilson Lynd (1879–1949) Irish Essayist, Critic
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Friendship may sometimes step a few paces in advance of truth.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
Keep the other person’s well-being in mind when you feel an attack of soul-purging truth coming on.
—Betty White (1922–2021) American Actress, Comedian
Those that lack friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
If all hearts were open and all desires known—as they would be if people showed their souls—how many gapings, sighings, clenched fists, knotted brows, broad grins, and red eyes should we see in the market-place!
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
It’s important to our friends to believe that we are unreservedly frank with them, and important to the friendship that we are not.
—Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) American Journalist, Author
Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.
—Chinese Proverb
We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities; it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can’t tolerate.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs.
—George Chapman (c.1560–1634) English Poet, Playwright
The truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
Gracious to all, to none subservient, Without offense he spoke the word he meant.
—Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) American Writer, Poet, Critic, Editor
Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.
—George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish Novelist, Lecturer, Poet
You may tell a man thou art a fiend, but not your nose wants blowing; to him alone who can bear a thing of that kind, you may tell all.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Some so speak in exaggerations and superlatives that we need to make a large discount from their statements before we can come at their real meaning.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
There is not so good an understanding between any two, but the exposure by the one of a serious fault in the other will produce a misunderstanding in proportion to its heinousness.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Flattery makes friends, truth enemies.
—Spanish Proverb
There is no wisdom like frankness.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) British Head of State
I can promise to be candid, though I may not be impartial.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
Candor is the brightest gem of criticism.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.
—Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand-born British Author
Frank and explicit; that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) British Head of State
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Don’t tell your friends their social faults; they will cure the fault and never forgive you.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile