Il est plus honteux de se défier de ses amis que d'en être trompé.
Variant translation: It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.
Maxim 84.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Reportedly in: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Mistrust, Conspiracy, and Lack of Internet Ethics (1980) Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Ninety-second Congress. p. 32
Attributed
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer
No. 60
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)
“why do our enemies shape us more than our friends?”
Rafik Schami (1946) German writer
Source: The Dark Side of Love
“But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Variant: Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Source: Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None
André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship
“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Variant: The human heart... tells us that we are more alike than we are unalike.
Source: The Complete Collected Poems
“Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet
Letter to Henry Cromwell (19 October 1709).
Source: Letters of the Late Alexander Pope, Esq. to a Lady. Never Before Published
