There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
Interpretation
True friendship requires trust, and trust is built on honesty and integrity.
This quote emphasizes the fundamental components of a genuine friendship, which are confidence and integrity. It suggests that for a friendship to thrive, both parties must have a foundational trust in each other, and that trust can only be established and maintained through integrity and honesty in their actions and words.
In practice
During a speech about the importance of relationships, one might use this quote to highlight the role of trust.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Real friendship is shown in times of trouble; prosperity is full of friends.
That is the remarkable thing about drinking: it brings people together so quickly, but between night and morning it sets an interval again of years.
A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
Whoever understands how to do a kindness when he fares well would be a friend better than any possession.
We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being.
If thy friends be of better quality than thyself, thou mayest be sure of two things; first, they will be more careful to keep thy counsel, because they have more to lose than thou hast; the second, they will esteem thee for thyself, and not for that which thou dost possess.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.