31.  A likeness of inclinations in every particular is so far from being requisite to form a benevolence in two minds towards each other, as it is generally imagined, that I believe we shall find some of the firmest friendships to have been contracted between persons of different humours; the mind being often pleased with those perfections which are new to it, and which it does not find among its own accomplishments.

32.  Besides that a man in some measure supplies his own defects, and fancies himself at second-hand possessed of those good qualities and endowments, which are in the possession of him who in the eye of the world is looked on as his other self.

33.  The most difficult province in friendship is the letting a man see his faults and errors, which should, if possible, be so contrived, that he may perceive our advice is given him not so much to please ourselves, as for his own advantage.  The reproaches, therefore, of a friend, should always be strictly just, and not too frequent.

34.  The violent desire of pleasing in the person reproved may otherwise change into a despair of doing it, while he finds himself censured for faults he is not conscious of.  A mind that is softened and humanized by friendship, cannot bear frequent reproaches:  either it must quite sink under the oppression, or abate considerably of the value and esteem it had for him who bestows them.

35.  The proper business of friendship is to inspire life and courage; and a soul, thus supported, out-does itself; whereas if it be unexpectedly deprived of those succours, it droops and languishes.

36.  We are in some measure more inexcusable if we violate our duties to a friend, than to a relation; since the former arise from a voluntary choice, the latter from a necessity, to which we could not give our own consent.

37.  As it has been said on one side, that a man ought not to break with a faulty friend, that he may not expose the weakness of his choice; it will doubtless hold much stronger with respect to a worthy one, that he may never be upbraided for having lost so valuable a treasure which was once in his possession.

Detraction and Falsehood

1.  I have not seen you lately at any of the places where I visit, so that I am afraid you are wholly unacquainted with what passes among my part of the world, who are, though I say it, without controversy, the most accomplished and best bred in the town.

2.  Give me leave to tell you, that I am extremely discomposed when I hear scandal, and am an utter enemy to all manner of detraction, and think it the greatest meanness that people of distinction can be guilty of; however, it is hardly possible to come into company, where you do not find them pulling one another to pieces, and that from no other provocation but that of hearing any one commended.

3.  Merit, both as to wit and beauty, is become no other than the possession of a few trifling people’s favor, which you cannot possibly arrive at, if you have really any thing in you that is deserving.