St. John of the Ladder

Let us love God at least as much as we respect our friends. For I have often seen those people who had offended God and were not in the least perturbed about it. And I have seen how those same people provoked their friends in some trifling matter and then then employed every artifice, every device, and through friends and relatives, not sparing gifts in order to regain their former love. - St. John of the Ladder