Never promise more than you can perform.
Publilius SyrusRead
Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Be mindful of how you treat your friends, as their loyalty can change.
This quote suggests that one should treat their friends with a degree of caution and respect, acknowledging that relationships can evolve over time. It reflects the idea that even those who are close to us can become adversaries under certain circumstances, highlighting the importance of being considerate and maintaining healthy boundaries in friendships.
Themes
FriendshipCautionRelationshipsLoyaltyRespect
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the dynamics of friendship at a community event.
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What a tragedy is help where it harms what it supports!
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The miser is as much in want of what he has as of what he has not.
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Similar quotes
The true and not despairing Friend will address his Friend in some such terms as these. "I never asked thy leave to let me love thee,--I have a right. I love thee not as something private and personal, which is your own, but as something universal and worthy of love, which I have found. O, how I think of you! You are purely good, --you are infinitely good. I can trust you forever. I did not think that humanity was so rich. Give me an opportunity to live.
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Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
Izaak WaltonRead
Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments...
Samuel JohnsonRead
it is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they themselves care for nobody
William Makepeace ThackerayRead
Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.
Jesse OwensRead