“Friendships, like marriages, are dependent on avoiding the unforgivable.”

“Marriage is the cure of love, and friendship the cure of marriage.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

“Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

“Marriage: A friendship recognized by the police.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“A successful marriage puts an end to feminine friendships; but if marriage is a failure, the young woman must have others to confide in.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

“Scientific collaborations are akin to marriages, or temporary marriages. Their breakup is not unlike a divorce and rarely avoids acrimony.”

Peter Freund (1936–2018) American physicist

“Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the age of a tree, by the rings of friendship formed by the expanding central trunk. In the course of my history, not love or marriage so much as friendship has promoted growth.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

“If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman