“Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.”

Last update June 13, 2021. History

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Montesquieu34

French social commentator and political thinker 1689–1755

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“Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests, and an exchange of good offices; it is a species of commerce out of which self-love always expects to gain something.”

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Ce que les hommes ont nommé amitié n'est qu'une société, qu'un ménagement réciproque d'intérêts, et qu'un échange de bons offices; ce n'est enfin qu'un commerce où l'amour-propre se propose toujours quelque chose à gagner.
Maxim 83.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)