“The saints were his friends, and blessed him; the monsters were his friends, and guarded him.”
Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
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Victor Hugo 308
French poet, novelist, and dramatist 1802–1885Related quotes
“If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends.”
Source: Forever Odd (2005), Chapter 11; Odd Thomas's recounting of a conversation with Little Ozzie
Context: "Sometimes," I said, "it seems to me that a friend might not take such pleasure in making fun of me as you do."
"Dear Odd! If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not, in fact, his friends. How else would one learn to avoid saying those things that would elicit laughter from strangers? The mockery of friends is affectionate, and inoculates against foolishness."

Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 367
Sunni Hadith

“A man needs a friend not to flatter him, but to strengthen him at his weak points.”
Country Town Sayings [An anthology of witty sentences by the author] (1911), p81.

“An extrovert imagines that the people around him are his best friends.”

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)

“An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him.”
Quoted by George Bernard Shaw in a letter to Ellen Terry, 25 September 1896.
Context: On George Bernard Shaw An excellent man: he has no enemies, and none of his friends like him.