“Keep your friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent”
Source: The 48 Laws of Power
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Robert Greene111
American author 1959Related quotes
“Friendships are nice. So is competence.”
Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer
Source: Disclosure
“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer
" On The Conduct of Life" http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/ConductLife.htm (1822), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)
“The only true test of friendship is the time your friend spends on you.”
John Marsden (1950) author
Source: Circle of Flight
“In love, in friendship, in work and in life: put your heart into it.”
Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer
Original: (it) In amore, in amicizia, nel lavoro e nella vita: mettici il cuore.
Source: prevale.net
Jim C. Hines (1974) American writer
Source: The Goblin Quest Series, Goblin Hero (2007), Chapter 7 (p. 117)
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author
Machiavelli commented on the relative ease of gaining favor from friends and enemies in Chapter 20 of The Prince, quoted above. However, this particular wording comes from a line spoken by Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974), written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola:
My father taught me many things here. He taught me in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
Misattributed
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty
This has often been attributed to Sun Tzu and sometimes to Petrarch. It comes most directly from a line spoken by Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974), written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola:
My father taught me many things here. He taught me in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
Niccolò Machiavelli, who is also sometimes credited, wrote on the subject in The Prince:
It is easier for the prince to make friends of those men who were contented under the former government, and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it.
Misattributed