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“When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.”
Seneca separates two stages that are often confused: evaluate carefully before admitting someone into close friendship, then stop treating an accepted friend as though the relationship were still permanently on trial.
Source note: Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 3, “On True and False Friendship,” Richard M. Gummere translation. The letter argues against both careless openness and suspicious friendship; Letter 3 provenance still normalizes to the single Moral Letters work family for Seneca authority.
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“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure.”
Voice: Narrator voice · Narrator
Austen observes that even sincere accounts can contain omission, disguise, or misunderstanding, which makes careful listening and humility important in judging what people say.
Source note: Emma, Volume III, Chapter 13, during the narrator’s reflection on Emma and Mr. Knightley’s conversation.
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“How happy I am, that my friend Marcus Cornelius, so distinguished as an orator and so noble as a man, thinks me worth praising and blaming.”
Marcus values a relationship in which admiration does not exclude correction: Fronto’s willingness to praise and blame him is presented as a mark of trusted friendship rather than mere approval.
Source note: Project Gutenberg #2680, Appendix “Correspondence of M. Aurelius Antoninus and M. Cornelius Fronto,” identifies this line as Ad M. Caes. iii. 17. The wording is preserved as correspondence context, not treated as a maxim from the Meditations.
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“My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.”
Voice: Fictional character · Fitzwilliam Darcy
Darcy presents trust and esteem as difficult to restore once serious judgment has turned against someone, revealing both the firmness and the potential rigidity of his early character.
Source note: Pride and Prejudice, Chapter XI, Project Gutenberg #1342. Fitzwilliam Darcy says this to Elizabeth Bennet during their discussion of faults; Elizabeth immediately identifies the position as implacable resentment, so the novel itself does not leave the maxim unchallenged.
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“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
The joke exaggerates how difficult secrecy becomes once information is shared, making discretion the safest form of confidentiality.
Source note: Poor Richard’s Almanack; one of Franklin’s compact maxims about secrecy and human behavior.
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“At least I prefer to write unwisely rather than to be silent unkindly.”
Marcus explains why he risks offering awkward advice to Fronto: preserving kindness and speaking when concern matters can be preferable to staying silent simply to avoid possible embarrassment.
Source note: Project Gutenberg #2680, correspondence appendix, Ad M. Caes. ii. 2. Marcus closes a letter about Fronto’s role in the Herodes Atticus dispute with this sentence. It is personal epistolary reasoning inside a specific conflict, not a universal rule to intervene in every disagreement.