"A friend, above all, is somebody who does not judge you."

"A friend, above all, is somebody who does not judge you. I have told you that he is somebody who opens his doors to the vagabond, with his crutch, with his stick, which he has set down in a corner and he does not ask him to dance, so that he can judge his dance. And if the vagabond tells of the spring he passed on the road outside, a friend is somebody who welcomes the spring within him. And if he tells of the horror of the famine in the village he comes from, he suffers that famine with him. For I have told you, the friend in the man, is the part that is for you and that opens a door for you which he may possibly never open anywhere else. Your friend is true and all that he says is true, and he loves you even if he hates you in the other house. And the friend in the temple is he who, thank God, I brush past and meet, he who turns to me the same face as my own, lit up by the same God, for then unity is achieved, even if elsewhere, he is a shopkeeper, while I am a captain, or a gardener while I am a sailor on the sea. Over and beyond our discussions, I have found him and his friend. And I can be silent near him, that is to say, not fear anything from him concerning my interior gardens and my mountains and my ravines and my deserts, for he won't place his feet there. You, my friend, what you receive from me with love is like the ambassador of my interior empire. And you treat it well and you let it sit down and you listen to it. And we are happy."

Wisdom of the Sands - Saint Exupery

From Saint Exupery: Art, Writing and Musings by Nathalie Des Vallieres