“A service without flowers, the king without a horse and friendship with one who does not know the language are a waste.”

Source: Train to Pakistan

Ma cos'è mai la storia, diceva spesso don Ferrante, senza la politica? Una guida che cammina, cammina, con nessuno dietro che impari la strada, e per conseguenza butta via i suoi passi; come la politica senza la storia è uno che cammina senza guida.
Variant translation:
"But," said he often, "what is history without politics? a guide who conducts without teaching any one the way; as politics without history, is a man without a guide to conduct him."
Richard Bentley translation (1834)
Source: The Betrothed (1827; 1842), Ch. 27, p. 374

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Discourses (1967), p. 364.
General sources
Context: One of the most difficult things to learn is to render service without bossing, without making a fuss about it, and without any consciousness of high and low. In the world of spirituality, humility counts at least as much as utility.

Interview with Mark Jason Dominus, April 7, 2005, January 17, 2011, The Perl Review, http://www.webcitation.org/5vo5J8kzO, January 17, 2011 http://www.theperlreview.com/Interviews/mjd-hop-20050407.html,

Dans l'amitié comme dans l'amour on est souvent plus heureux par les choses qu'on ignore que par celles que l'on sait.
Variant translation: In friendship as in love, we are often happier due to the things we are unaware of than the things we know.
Maxim 441.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

L'Amitié est l'Amour sans Ailes, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).