Friendship Quotations
Friendship
From Wikiquote Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. ~ Richard Bach- "Friends" redirects here, for the television series, see Friends (TV series).
Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more people. It can be taken to mean a supportive relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection
Contents
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Quotes
- Alphabetized by author or source
- The beauty of friendship so deep and nurturing, with infinite laughter is that it comes with no price and shall always be carried in your heart.
- Jenny Acasio, in Strain for Eric Grossmann
- The friendships of the world are oft
Confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasure;
Ours has severest virtue for its basis,
And such a friendship ends not but with life.
- Joseph Addison, in Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act III, scene 1
- He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
- Ali, in A Hundred Sayings
- Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
- Richard Bach, Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
- Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things, — old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
- Francis Bacon, quoting Alonso de Aragon, in Apothegms, No. 97, as reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition (1919); Alonso's statement is also the source of another rendition:
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- Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read! — Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appeared to be best in these four things.
- * Melchior de Santa Cruz, Floresta Española de Apothegmas o sentencias, etc., ii. 1, 20, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition (1919)
- I get by with a little help from my friends.
- The Beatles, in With a Little Help from My Friends
- No friend's a friend till [he shall] prove a friend.
- Beaumont and Fletcher, The Faithful Friends (c. 1608), Act III, scene 3, line 50
- I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them them that keep thy precepts.
- A friend loves at all times, and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.
- The Bible, Proverbs 17:17 (NRSV)
- A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
- The Bible Proverbs 18:24 (New International Version)
- Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
- The Bible, Proverbs 27:6 (NASB)
- A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter;
he who finds one finds a treasure.
A faithful friend is beyond price,
no sum can balance his worth.
- Sirach 6:14-15 (The New American Bible)
- Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up."
- The Bible, Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
- I have loved my friends as I do virtue, my soul, my God.
- Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1642), Part II, Section V
- Now with my friend I desire not to share or participate, but to engross his sorrows, that, by making them mine own, I may more easily discuss them; for in mine own reason, and within myself, I can command that which I cannot entreat without myself, and within the circle of another.
- Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1642), Part II, Section V
- There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths.
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What Will He Do With It? (1858), Book II, Chapter XIV
- Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
- Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, The Godfather Part II (1974), (character of "Michael Corleone"); this has often become attributed to Sun Tzu and sometimes to Niccolò Machiavelli or Petrarch, but there are no published sources yet found which predate its use in the second Godfather film, where Corleone states: My father taught me many things here — he taught me in this room. He taught me — keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
- I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
- William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book VI, line 560
- She that asks
Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all,
And hates their coming.
- William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book II, line 642
- The blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
- Dinah Craik, in A Life for a Life (1859); since the 1930s this has also been published in many paraphrased forms, often uncredited to Craik, including: A friend is one To whom one may pour out all The contents of one's heart Chaff and grain, together, Knowing that the gentlest of hands Will take and sift it, Keep what's worth keeping And blow the rest away
- Le sort fait les parents, la choix fait les amis.
- Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends.
- Jacques Delille, Malheur at Pitié (1803), Canto I
- Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!
- George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book III
- Friend more divine than all divinities.
- George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book IV
- A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, in "Friendship" in Essays (1841), First series
- Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed. They stand on the brink of the ocean of thought and power, but they never take a single step that would bring them there.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays (1841), Of Experience
- The only way to have a friend is to be one.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays (1841), Of Friendship
- A friendship that can be ended didn't ever start.
- Mellin de Saint-Gelais, Oeuvres poétiques
- Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
- Kahlil Gibran, in The Prophet (1923)
- I love everything that's old, — old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
- Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act I, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition (1919)
- He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack;
For he knew, when he pleas'd, he could whistle them back.
- Oliver Goldsmith, Retaliation (1774), line 107
- If displeased with any man, do all you can to prevent his seeing it, for otherwise he will become estranged. And occasions often arise when he might and would have served you had you not lost him by showing your dislike. Of this I have had experience to my own profit. For once and again I have felt ill-disposed towards some one who not being aware of my hostility has afterwards helped me when I needed help and proved my good friend.
- Francesco Guicciardini, Counsels and Reflections, 324
- Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.
- Jean Hérault, sieur de Gourville as quoted in Considérations sur l'esprit et les moeurs (1788) by Gabriel Sénac de Meilhan; a similar remard "May God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies." has become attributed to Voltaire, since at least 1908, but without sourcing
- Friendship is often outgrown; and his former child's clothes will no more fit a man than some of his former friendships.
- Sir Arthur Helps, in 'Unreasonable Claims in Social Affections and Relations', Chapter IX, Friends in Council (First Series) (1847)
- The finest friendships are between those who can do without each other.
- Elbert Hubbard, in 'Exclusive Friendships', Love, Life & Work (1906)
- Never explain — your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyhow.
- Elbert Hubbard, in The Motto Book (1907)
- One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and more symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.
- Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World (1932)
- Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
- Jesus, in John 15:13
- Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success — yours or his.
- Franklin P. Jones, in Saturday Evening Post (29 November 1953)
- The absolute condition for friendship is unity in a life-view. If a person has that, he will not be tempted to base his friendship on obscure feelings or on indefinable sympathies. As a consequence, he will not experience these ridiculous shifts, so that one day he has a friend and the next day he does not. He will not fail to appreciate the significance of the indefinable sympathies, because, strictly speaking, a person is certainly not a friend of everyone with whom he shares a life-view but neither does he stop with only the mysteriousness of the sympathies. A true friendship always requires consciousness and is therefore freed from being infatuation. The life-view in which one is united must be a positive view.
- Soren Kierkegaard Either/Or Part II, Hong p. 319 (1843)
- Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither acknowledges the fact to himself.
- Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
- What find you better or more honourable than age? Take the preheminence of it in everything, — in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree.
- Shackerley Marmionin The Antiquary, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition (1919)
- A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart's. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back — it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.
The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment. Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined. One cannot dance well unless one is completely in time with the music, not leaning back to the last step or pressing forward to the next one, but poised directly on the present step as it comes. Perfect poise on the beat is what gives good dancing its sense of ease, of timelessness, of the eternal.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in Gift from the Sea
- Come back! ye friendships long departed!
That like o'erflowing streamlets started,
And now are dwindled, one by one,
To stony channels in the sun!
Come back! ye friends, whose lives are ended,
Come back, with all that light attended,
Which seemed to darken and decay
When ye arose and went away!
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus (1872), Part II, The Golden Legend, I
- O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence more
Than the impending night darkens the landscape o'er!
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus (1872), Part II, The Golden Legend, I
- You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friendship between us,
Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily broken!
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), Part VI, Priscilla, line 22
- Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship
Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), Part VI, Priscilla, line 72
- Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
- Anaïs Nin, Diary entry (March 1937)
- When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
- Henri Nouwen, in Out of Solitude (1996)
- But remember! when it comes to friends, it's not how much time you spend with them, just how you spend it!
- Eiichiro Oda, "Mr. 2 Bon Clay" in One Piece
- We were at the age when a friend's conversation seems like oneself talking, when one shares a life in common the way I still think, bachelor though I am, some married couples are able to live.
- Cesare Pavese, The Beach
- Al amigo todo, al enemigo ni justicia.
- Everything for a friend, not even justice for an enemy.
- Juan Domingo Perón, as quoted in Dictatorship, Democracy, and Globalization: Argentina and the Cost of Paralysis, 1973-2001 (2009) by Klaus Friedrich Veigel
- For all are friends in heaven, all faithful friends;
And many friendships in the days of time
Begun, are lasting here, and growing still.
- Robert Pollok, The Course of Time (1827), Book V, line 336
- Friends given by God in mercy and in love;
My counsellors, my comforters, and guides;
My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy;
Companions of my young desires; in doubt
My oracles; my wings in high pursuit.
Oh! I remember, and will ne'er forget
Our meeting spots, our chosen sacred hours;
Our burning words, that utter'd all the soul,
Our faces beaming with unearthly love;—
Sorrow with sorrow sighing, hope with hope
Exulting, heart embracing heart entire.
- Robert Pollok, The Course of Time (1827), Book V, line 315
- What ill-starr'd rage
Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age?
- Alexander Pope, Dunciad (1728 to 1743), Book III, line 173
- Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend—and ev'ry foe.
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), line 214
- Ah, friend! to dazzle let the vain design;
To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine.
- Alexander Pope, Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle II, line 248
- To like and dislike the same things, that is indeed true friendship.
- Sallust, as quoted in The Quotation Dictionary (1962) by Robin Hyman
- A friend in need is a friend indeed.
- Scots proverb, as published in Beauties of Allan Ramsay: Being a Selection of the Most Admired Pieces of that Celebrated Author, viz. The Gentle Shepherd; Christ's Kirk on the Green; The Monk, and the Miller's Wife; with his valuable collection of Scots Proverbs (1815), "Scots Proverbs" Ch. 1; also quoted in Pure Morning, a song by Placebo
- Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.
- John Selden, in "Friends" in Table Talk (1689)
- Keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key.
- William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act I, scene 1, line 75
- We still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.
- William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Act I, scene 3, line 75
- Most friendship is feigning.
- William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Song, Act II, scene 7, line 181
- Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act I, scene 3, line 59
- For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 2, line 217
- Out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!
- William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act I, scene 3, line 208
- Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! give me them that will face me.
- William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act II, scene 4, line 165
- Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels
Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away
Like water from ye, never found again
But where they mean to sink ye.
- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act II, scene 1, line 126
- As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.
- William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act II, scene 1, line 290
- A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
- William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act IV, scene 3, line 86
- To wail friends lost
Is not by much so wholesome — profitable,
As to rejoice at friends but newly found.
- William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act V, scene 2, line 759
- When did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 3, line 134
- I would be friends with you and have your love.
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 3, line 139
- Two lovely berries moulded on one stem:
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart.
- William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595-96), Act III, scene 2, line 211
- Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent.
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act II, scene 1, line 182
- Words are easy, like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
- Attributed to William Shakespeare, Passionate Pilgrim. In Notes and Queries, June, 1918, p. 174, it is suggested that the lines are by Barnfield, being a piracy from Jaggard's publication (1599), a volume containing little of Shakespeare, the majority being pieces by Marlowe, Raleigh, Barnfield, and others
- I am not of that feather to shake off
My friend when he must need me.
- William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act I, scene 1, line 100
- Friendship's full of dregs.
- William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act I, scene 2, line 240
- For by these
Shall I try friends: you shall perceive how you
Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
- William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act II, scene 2, line 191
- The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.
- William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida (c. 1602), Act II, scene 3, line 110
- If you should die before me, ask if you could bring a friend.
- Stone Temple Pilots in "Still Remains" on Purple (1994)
- Friendship is not for merriment but for stern reproach when friends go astray.
- Tiruvalluvar, Tirukkural: 784
- You that would judge me, do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon,
Ireland's history in their lineaments trace,
Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.
- William Butler Yeats, The Municipal Gallery Re-Visited
- And friend received with thumps upon the back.
- Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-28), Satire I
- A friend is worth all hazards we can run.
- Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night II, line 571
- A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man,
Some sinister intent taints all he does.
- Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 704
- Death is mighty, and is no one's friend.
- Roger Zelazny, in Lord of Light (1967)
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
The highest compact we can make with our fellow is, — Let there be truth between us two forevermore. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), "Friends", p. 296-300; "Friendship", p. 300-302.
- Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn.
- Joseph Addison, The Campaign, line 102
- The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break.
- George Bancroft, History of the United States, William Penn's Treaty with the Indians
- It is better to avenge a friend than to mourn for him.
- Beowulf, VII
- Friend, of my infinite dreams
Little enough endures;
Little howe'er it seems,
It is yours, all yours.
- Arthur Benson, The Gift
- Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul,
Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society.
- Robert Blair, The Grave, line 87
- Let my hand,
This hand, lie in your own—my own true friend;
Aprile! Hand-in-hand with you, Aprile!
- Robert Browning, Paracelsus, scene 5
- Hand
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship,
And great hearts expand
And grow one in the sense of this world's life.
- Robert Browning, Saul, Stanza 7
- We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine.
- Robert Burns, Auld Lang Syne
- Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne?
- Robert Burns, Auld Lang Syne. Burns refers to these words as an old folk song. Early version in James Watson's Collection of Scottish Songs (1711)
- Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And never thought upon.
- From an old poem by Robert Ayton of Kincaldie
- Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
Though they return with scars.
- Allan Ramsay's Version. See his Tea-Table Miscellany (1724). Transferred after to Johnson's Musical Museum. See S. J. A. Fitzgerald's Stories of Famous Songs
- His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony,
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither—
They had been fou for weeks thegither!
- Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter
- Ah! were I sever'd from thy side,
Where were thy friend and who my guide?
Years have not seen, Time shall not see
The hour that tears my soul from thee.
- Lord Byron, Bride of Abydos, Canto I, Stanza 11
- Friendship is Love without his wings!
- Lord Byron, L'Amitié est l'Amour sans Ailes, Stanza 1
- In friendship I early was taught to believe;
* * * * * *
I have found that a friend may profess, yet deceive.
- Lord Byron, lines addressed to the Rev. J. T. Becher, Stanza 7
- 'Twas sung, how they were lovely in their lives,
And in their deaths had not divided been.
- Thomas Campbell, Gertrude of Wyoming, Part III, Stanza 33
- Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe;
Bold I can meet—perhaps may turn his blow;
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh! save me from the candid friend.
- George Canning, The New Morality
- Oh, how you wrong our friendship, valiant youth.
With friends there is not such a word as debt:
Where amity is ty'd with band of truth,
All benefits are there in common set.
- Lady Carew, Marian
- Greatly his foes he dreads, but more his friends,
He hurts me most who lavishly commends.
- Charles Churchill, The Apology, line 19
- Friends I have made, whom Envy must commend,
But not one foe whom I would wish a friend.
- Charles Churchill, Conference, line 297
- Amicus est tanquam alter idem.
- A friend is, as it were, a second self.
- Cicero, De Amicitia, XXI. 80. (Adapted.)
- You must therefore love me, myself, and not my circumstances, if we are to be real friends.
- Cicero, De Finibus. Yonge's translation
- Secundas res splendidiores facit amicitia, et adversas partiens communicansque leviores.
- Friendship makes prosperity brighter, while it lightens adversity by sharing its griefs and anxieties.
- Cicero, De Amicitia, VI
- Vulgo dicitur multos modios salis simul edendos esse, ut amicitia munus expletum sit.
- It is a common saying that many pecks of salt must be eaten before the duties of friendship can be discharged.
- Cicero, De Amicitia, XIX
- Friendship is a sheltering tree.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Youth and Age.
- Our very best friends have a tincture of jealousy even in their friendship; and when they hear us praised by others, will ascribe it to sinister and interested motives if they can.
- Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, p. 80
- Soyons amis, Cinna, c'est moi qui t'en convie.
- Let us be friends, Cinna, it is I who invite you to be so.
- Pierre Corneille, Cinna, V. 3
- The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
How he esteems your merit,
Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
- William Cowper, On Friendship, 169
- As we sail through life towards death,
Bound unto the same port—heaven,—
Friend, what years could us divide?
- Dinah Craik, Thirty Years, A Christmas Blessing
- Then come the wild weather, come sleet or come snow,
We will stand by each other, however it blow.
- Simon Dach, Annie of Tharaw. Longfellow's trans, line 7
- Le sort fait les parents, le choix fait les amis.
- Chance makes our parents, but choice makes our friends.
- Jacques Delille, Pitié
- Les amis—ces parents que l'on se fait soi-même.
- Friends, those relations that one makes for one's self.
- Eustache Deschamps, L'Ami
- "Wal'r, my boy," replied the captain; "in the Proverbs of Solomon you will find the following words: 'May we never want a friend in need, nor a bottle to give him!' When found, make a note of."
- Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, Volume I, Chapter XV
- What is the odds so long as the fire of souls is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a feather?
- Charles Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, Chapter II
- Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.
- Charles Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, Chapter VII
- For friendship, of itself a holy tie,
Is made more sacred by adversity.
- John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther (1687), Part III, line 47
- Be kind to my remains; and O defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend.
- John Dryden, Epistle to Congreve, line 72
- The poor make no new friends;
But oh, they love the better still
The few our Father sends.
- Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye, Lament of the Irish Emigrant
- Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable unto him. A new friend is as new wine: when it is old thou shalt drink it with pleasure.
- Ecclesiasticus, IX. 10
- The fallying out of faithful frends is the reunyng of love.
- Richard Edwards, The Paradise of Dainty Devices, No. 42, Stanza 1
- Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
- George Eliot, Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story, Chapter VII
- Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.
- George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, Book IV, Chapter XXXII
- So, if I live or die to serve my friend,
'Tis for my love —' tis for my friend alone,
And not for any rate that friendship bears
In heaven or on earth.
- George Eliot, Spanish Gypsy
- To act the part of a true friend requires more conscientious feeling than to fill with credit and complacency any other station or capacity in social life.
- Sarah Stickney Ellis, Pictures of Private Life, Second Series, The Pains of Pleasing, Chapter IV
- A day for toil, an hour for sport,
But for a friend is life too short.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Considerations by the Way
- Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor, busy men can usually command.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Behavior
- The highest compact we can make with our fellow is, — Let there be truth between us two forevermore. * * * It is sublime to feel and say of another, I need never meet, or speak, or write to him; we need not reinforce ourselves or send tokens of remembrance; I rely on him as on myself; if he did thus or thus, I know it was right.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Behavior
- I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Of Friendship
- The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Of Friendship
- There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never mutual respect, until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Of Friendship
- A sudden thought strikes me—Let us swear an eternal friendship.
- John H. Frere, The Rovers, Act I
- Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.
- John Gay, The Hare with Many Friends
- To friendship every burden's light.
- John Gay, The Hare with Many Friends
- Who friendship with a knave hath made,
Is judg'd a partner in the trade.
- John Gay, Old Woman and Her Cats
- 'Tis thus that on the choice of friends
Our good or evil name depends.
- John Gay, Old Woman and Her Cats, Part I
- An open foe may prove a curse,
But a pretended friend is worse.
- John Gay, Shepherd's Dog and the Wolf, line 33
- Wer nicht die Welt in seinen Freunden sieht
Verdient nicht, dass die Welt von ihm erfahre.
- He who does not see the whole world in his friends, does not deserve that the world should hear of him.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Torquato Tasso, I. 3. 68
- And what is friendship but a name,
A charm that lulls to sleep;
A shade that follows wealth or fame,
And leaves the wretch to weep?
- Oliver Goldsmith, Edwin and Angelina, or The Hermit, Stanza 19
- Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.
- Thomas Gray, The Bard, Stanza 3
- A favourite has no friend.
- Thomas Gray, On a Favourite Cat Drowned, Stanza 6
- We never know the true value of friends. While they live, we are too sensitive of their faults; when we have lost them, we only see their virtues.
- J. C. and A. W. Hare, Guesses at Truth
- Friendship closes its eye, rather than see the moon eclipst; while malice denies that it is ever at the full.
- J. C. and A. W. Hare, Guesses at Truth
- Friendship is Love, without either flowers or veil.
- J. C. and A. W. Hare, Guesses at Truth
- Devout, yet cheerful; pious, not austere;
To others lenient, to himself sincere.
- J. M. Harvey, On a Friend
- Before you make a friend eat a bushel of salt with him.
- George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651)
- For my boyhood's friend hath fallen, the pillar of my trust,
The true, the wise, the beautiful, is sleeping in the dust.
- George Stillman Hillard, On Death of Motley
- Fast as the rolling seasons bring
The hour of fate to those we love,
Each pearl that leaves the broken string
Is set in Friendship's crown above.
As narrower grows the earthly chain,
The circle widens in the sky;
These are our treasures that remain,
But those are stars that beam on high.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Songs of Many Seasons, Our Classmate, F. W. C., 1864
- A generous friendship no cold medium knows,
Burns with one love, with one resentment glows;
One should our interests and our passions be,
My friend must hate the man that injures me.
- Homer, The Iliad, Book IX, line 725. Pope's translation
- Two friends, two bodies with one soul inspir'd.
- Homer, The Iliad, Book XVI, line 267. Pope's translation
- Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici;
Expertus metuit.
- To have a great man for an intimate friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.
- Horace, Epistles, I. 18. 86
- True friends appear less mov'd than counterfeit.
- Horace, Of the Art of Poetry, line 486. Wentworth Dillon's translation
- The new is older than the old;
And newest friend is oldest friend in this:
That, waiting him, we longest grieved to miss
One thing we sought.
- Helen Hunt Jackson, My New Friend
- If a man does not make new acquaintances, as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.
- Samuel Johnson, reported in James Boswell, Life of Johnson (1755)
- Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven,
The noble mind's delight and pride,
To men and angels only given,
To all the lower world denied.
- Samuel Johnson, Friendship, An Ode
- The endearing elegance of female friendship.
- Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, Chapter XLVI
- True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice. Nor would I have
Virtue a popular regard pursue:
Let them be good that love me, though but few.
- Ben Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, Act III, scene 2
- 'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse
How grows in Paradise our store.
- John Keble, Burial of the Dead, Stanza 11
- One faithful Friend is enough for a man's self, 'tis much to meet with such an one, yet we can't have too many for the sake of others.
- Jean de La Bruyère, The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (1688), Chapter V
- In Friendship we only see those faults which may be prejudicial to our friends. In love we see no faults but those by which we suffer ourselves.
- Jean de La Bruyère, The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (1688), Chapter V
- Love and friendship exclude each other.
- Jean de La Bruyère, The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (1688), Chapter V
- Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior intellect can never taste.
- Jean de La Bruyère, The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (1688), Chapter V
- Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
- Charles Lamb, The Old Familiar Faces
- I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
- Abraham Lincoln, Reply to Missouri Committee of Seventy (1864)
- Alas! to-day I would give everything
To see a friend's face, or hear a voice
That had the slightest tone of comfort in it.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Judas Maccabæus, Act IV, scene 3, line 32
- My designs and labors
And aspirations are my only friends.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Masque of Pandora, Tower of Prometheus on Mount Caucasus, Part III, line 74
- Ah, how good it feels!
The hand of an old friend.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, New England Tragedies; John Endicott, Act IV, scene 1
- Quien te conseja encobria de tus amigos.
Engañar te quiere assaz, y sin testigos.
- He who advises you to be reserved to your friends wishes to betray you without witnesses.
- w: Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena in w:Tales of Count Lucanor (1575)
- Nulla fides regni sociis omnisque potestas
Impatiens consortis erit.
- There is no friendship between those associated in power; he who rules will always be impatient of an associate.
- Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalia. I. 92
- Let the falling out of friends be a renewing of affection.
- John Lyly, Euphues
- Women, like princes, find few real friends.
- George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, Advice to a Lady, Stanza 2
- Friends are like melons. Shall I tell you why?
To find one good, you must a hundred try.
- fr:Claude Mermet, Epigram on Friends
- My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship.
- Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Act IV, scene 1
- Oh, call it by some better name,
For Friendship sounds too cold.
- Thomas Moore, Oh, call it by some better Name
- Forsooth, brethren, fellowship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell; fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death; and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them.
- William Morris, Dream of John Ball, Chapter IV
- We have been friends together
In sunshine and in shade.
- Caroline E. S. Norton We Have Been Friends
- Vulgus amicitias utilitate probat.
- The vulgar herd estimate friendship by its advantages.
- Ovid, Epistolæ Ex Ponto, II. 3. 8
- Scilicet ut fulvum spectatur in ignibus aurum
Tempore in duro est inspicienda fides.
- As the yellow gold is tried in fire, so the faith of friendship must be seen in adversity.
- Ovid, Tristium, I. 5. 25
- Cætera fortunæ, non mea, turba fuit.
- The rest of the crowd were friends of my fortune, not of me.
- Ovid, Tristium, I. 5. 34
- Prosperity makes friends and adversity tries them.
- Idea found in Plautus, Stich, IV. 1. 16. Ovid, Epigram ex Ponto, II. 3. 23. Ovid, Trist. I. 9. 5. Ennius, Cic. Amicit, Chapter XVII. Metastasio, Olimpiade, III. 3. Johann Gottfried Herder, Denksprüche. Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Secret in Words, Act III, scene 3. Menander, Ex Incest. Comoed, p. 272. Aristotle, Ethics VIII. 4. Euripides, Hecuba, line 1226
- Quod tuum'st meum'st; omne meum est autem tuum.
- What is thine is mine, and all mine is thine.
- Plautus, Trinummus, II. 2. 47
- There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship; and indeed friendship itself is only a part of virtue.
- Alexander Pope, reported in Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Life of Pope
- Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear,
(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear.)
- Alexander Pope, Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford
- A man that hath friends must show himself friendly; and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
- Proverbs, XVIII. 24
- Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
- Proverbs, XXVII. 6
- Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
- Proverbs, XXVII. 17
- Mine own familiar friend.
- Psalms. XLI. 9
- There is no treasure the which may be compared unto a faithful friend;
Gold soone decayeth, and worldly wealth consumeth, and wasteth in the winde;
But love once planted in a perfect and pure minde indureth weale and woe;
The frownes of fortune, come they never so unkinde, cannot the same overthrowe.
- Roxburghe Ballads. The Bride's Good-Morrow. Ed. by John Payne Collier
- Idem velle et idem nolle ea demum firma amicitia est.
- To desire the same things and to reject the same things, constitutes true friendship.
- Sallust, Catilina, XX. From Cataline's Oration to his Associates
- Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.
- II Samuel. I. 23
- Dear is my friend—yet from my foe, as from my friend, comes good:
My friend shows what I can do, and my foe what I should.
- Friedrich Schiller, Votive Tablets, Friend and Foe
- Amicitia semper prodest, amor etiam aliquando nocet.
- Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures.
- Seneca, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, XXXV
- To hear him speak, and sweetly smile
You were in Paradise the while.
- Sir Philip Sidney, Friend's Passion for his Astrophel. Attributed also to Spenser and Roydon
- Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.
- Sydney Smith,in Lady Holland's Memoir (1855) , p. 257; "Let us swear an eternal friendship. Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. The Rovers"
- Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence.
- Sydney Smith, in Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), "Of Friendship"
- For to cast away a virtuous friend, I call as bad as to cast away one's own life, which one loves best.
- Sophocles, Œdipus Tyrannis. Oxford translation. Revised by Buckley
- For whoever knows how to return a kindness he has received must be a friend above all price.
- Sophocles, Philoctetes. Oxford translation. Revised by Buckley
- 'Tis something to be willing to commend;
But my best praise is, that I am your friend.
- Thomas Southerne, To Mr. Congreve on the Old Bachelor, last lines
- It's an owercome sooth fo' age an' youth,
And it brooks wi' nae denial,
That the dearest friends are the auldest friends,
And the young are just on trial.
- Robert Louis Stevenson, Underwoods, It's an Owercome Sooth.
- I thought you and he were hand-in-glove.
- Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (c. 1738), Dialogue II
- Amici vitium ni feras, prodis tuum.
- Unless you bear with the faults of a friend you betray your own.
- Syrus, Maxims
- Amicum lædere ne joco quidem licet.
- A friend must not be injured, even in jest.
- Syrus, Maxims
- Secrete amicos admone, lauda palam.
- Reprove your friends in secret, praise them openly.
- Syrus, Maxims
- A good man is the best friend, and therefore soonest to be chosen, longer to be retained; and indeed, never to be parted with, unless he cease to be that for which he was chosen.
- Jeremy Taylor, A Discourse of the Nature, Measures, and Offices of Friendship
- Choose for your friend him that is wise and good, and secret and just, ingenious and honest, and in those things which have a latitude, use your own liberty.
- Jeremy Taylor, A Discourse of the Nature, Measures, and Offices of Friendship
- When I choose my friend, I will not stay till I have received a kindness; but I will choose such a one that can do me many if I need them; but I mean such kindnesses which make me wiser, and which make me better.
- Jeremy Taylor, A Discourse of the Nature, Measures, and Offices of Friendship
- Friendship is like rivers, and the strand of seas, and the air, common to all the world; but tyrants, and evil customs, wars, and want of love, have made them proper and peculiar.
- Jeremy Taylor, A Discourse of the Nature, Measures, and Offices of Friendship
- Nature and religion are the bands of friendship, excellence and usefulness are its great endearments.
- Jeremy Taylor, A Discourse of the Nature, Measures, and Offices of Friendship
- Some friendships are made by nature, some by contract, some by interest, and some by souls.
- Jeremy Taylor, A Discourse of the Nature, Measures, and Offices of Friendship
- O friendship, equal-poised control,
O heart, with kindliest motion warm,
O sacred essence, other form,
O solemn ghost, O crowned soul!
- Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), LXXXV
- Then came your new friend: you began to change—
I saw it and grieved.
- Alfred Tennyson, The Princess (1847), IV, line 279
- Ego meorum solus sum meus.
- Of my friends I am the only one I have left.
- Terence, Phormio, IV. 1. 21
- Fidus Achates.
- Faithful Achates (companion of Æneas).
- Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), VI. 158
- God save me from my friends, I can protect myself from my enemies.
- Attributed to Claude Louis Hector de Villars on taking leave of Louis XIV
- True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is entitled to the appellation.
- George Washington, Social Maxims, Friendship
- A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man, that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends; and that the most liberal professions of good-will are very far from being the surest marks of it.
- George Washington, Social Maxims, Friendship, Actions, not Words
- I have friends in Spirit Land,—
Not shadows in a shadowy band,
Not others but themselves are they,
And still I think of them the same
As when the Master's summons came.
- John Greenleaf Whittier, Lucy Hooper
- Poets, like friends to whom you are in debt, you hate.
- William Wycherley, The Plain Dealer, Prologue
- Friendship's the wine of life: but friendship new * * * is neither strong nor pure.
- Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night II, line 582
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
- Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
- I consider beyond all wealth, honor, or even health, is the attachment due to noble souls; because to become one with the good, generous, and true, is to be, in a manner, good, generous, and true yourself.
- Dr. Thomas Arnold, p. 254
- The friendship of high and sanctified spirits loses nothing by death but its alloy; failings disappear, and the virtues of those whose faces we shall behold no more appear greater and more sacred when beheld through the shades of the sepulchre.
- Robert Hall, p. 254
- Character is so largely affected by associations that we cannot afford to be indifferent as to who and what our friends are. They write their names in our albums, but they do more, they help make us what we are. Be therefore careful in selecting them; and when wisely selected, never sacrifice them.
- M. Hulburd, p. 255
- Friendship is a cadence of divine melody melting through the heart.
- Charles Mildway, p. 255
- A good man is the best friend, and therefore soonest to be chosen, longest to be retained, and indeed never to be parted with, unless he cease to be that for which he was chosen.
- Jeremy Taylor, p. 254
See also
External links
Wikipedia has an article about: Friendship Wiktionary has an entry about friendship. At Wikiversity you can learn about: Happiness and Life#Have a Happy Relationship
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