E. W. Howe Quotes

The vulgar crowd values friends according to their usefulness.

Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.

Approaching people looking for something in return isn't a relationship, it's a transaction.

There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.

What men call friendship is no more than a partnership, a mutual care of interests, an exchange of favors - in a word, it is a sort of traffic, in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.

What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.

We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.

Dogs give us something just as we give something to them.

There is no friendship in trade.

You are beginning to see that any man to whom you can do favor is your friend, and that you can do a favor to almost anyone.

Those who give hoping to be rewarded with honor are not giving, they are bargaining.

Men do not value a good deed unless it brings a reward.

If you're nice to me I'll never write anything bad about you.

It’s in their interest to keep a Republican majority …. It’s sort of ‘Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

Sometimes you make friends when they are useful.

Promise everything to anyone, unless clear obligation prevents it. Only live up to those promises which are of advantage to you.

If you cash in on people, then they aren't your friends.

Takers are self-serving in their interactions. It's all about what can you do for me.

I don't work with anyone out of a sense of charity. I use people as long as they are useful to me.

In the eyes of many people, giving doesn't count unless it's completely selfless. In reality, though, giving isn't sustainable when it's completely selfless.

Donald Trump doesn't necessarily stay mad for very long. He's a transactional guy. If you can offer him something, he will take it. Or from a salesman's point of view, if he's not making the sale, you're of no use to him. But if you suddenly come back into the showroom and are willing to buy, he's willing to sell.

Make no mistake, dwarf. I fought for you, but I do not love you'' ''It was your blade I needed'' Tyrion said, ''not your love.

It is wrong to ask for more than you give freely. In this way, we come to resemble what we hate.

Take gifts with a sigh: most men give to be paid.

Rare indeed, is the relationship in which the other is not cultivated for what one can get for oneself.