Friendship Quotes
One friend in a life-time is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.
Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918) – The Education of Henry Adams, Ch. 20, 1907
The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) – Quoted in Hugs for Girlfriends by Philis Boultinghouse and LeAnn Weiss p7, but there appears to be no published sources for this statement prior to 2001. See the following quote, verified to have been published in 1793. Perhaps it is the original from which this grew.
Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of Friendship. It is painful to consider, that this sublime enjoyment may be impaired or destroyed by innumerable causes, and that there is no human possession of which the duration is less certain.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) – A Collection of Interesting Anecdotes, Memoirs, Allegories, Essays, and Poetical Fragments; Tending to Amuse the Fancy and Inculcatae Morality. J. Addison, London, 1793, p 235.
True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) – The Spectator (1711-12), No. 15, March 17, 1711.
Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn;
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) – “The Campaign,” 1704, line 102.
Our friends interpret the world and ourselves to us, if we take them tenderly and truly, nor need we but love them devotedly to become members of an immortal fraternity, superior to accident or change.
A. Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) – Table-Talk, Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1877, p. 77.
People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou – Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989) by Jeffrey M. Elliot
There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself – an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly.
Antisthenes (445BC – 365BC) – Quoted in The Book of Ancient Wisdom, ed. Bill Bradfield, 2005
Some people weave burlap into the fabric of our lives, and some weave gold thread. Both contribute to make the picture beautiful and unique.
Anon
Quote Gallery 2
Friendship is a plant which must be often watered.
Anon
When friendships are real, they are not glass threads, or frost work, but the solidest things we know. A friend is the first person who come in when the whole world has gone out.
Anonymous
A new friend is like new wine; when it has aged you will drink it with pleasure.
Apocrypha: Ecclesiasticus 9:10
Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Quoted in Dictionary of Foreign Quotations, Collison, MacMillan Press, 1980, p. 132.
Man’s best friend is one who wishes well to the object of his wish for his sake, even if no one is to know of it.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) – Nicomachean Ethics Book IX Chapter 8, 325 B.C.
Between friends there is no need of justice.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) – Nicomachean Ethics (4th c. B.C.) 8.I, tr. Thompson
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) – Quoted in Diogenes Laeritus’s Lives and Opinions of eminent Philosophers (3rd C. A.D.) tr. C.D. Younger. In the Section on Aristotle Diogenes says that Aristotle was onee asked what a friend is and his answer was: “One Soul abiding in two bodies.” In Bartlet’s Quotations 9th ed. in 1904, Alexander Pope is quoted as s follows: Two Friends, two bodies with one soul inspir’d.” Book XVI, Line 267. Bartlet footnotes the quote in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. See also William Pen, Maximum 108 in this section. It appears that the Aristotle quote may have been known by the sixteen hundreds.
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) – Eudemian Ethics VII 1238a20
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) – Eudemian Ethics Book VIII, 1155.a5
There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature.
Jane Austen (1775-1817) – Northanger Abby, 1817-1819, Wild Jolt Press, 2009, p 22.
Much certainly of the happiness and purity of our lives depends on our making a wise choice of our companions and friends. If our friends are badly chosen they will inevitably drag us down; if well they will raise us up.
Lord Avebury (John Lubbock) {1834-1913) – Pleasures of the Life, “The Blessings of Friends,” MacMillan And Co, London, 1913, p. 57
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
Richard Bach (1936 -) Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, 1977, p49.
The best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – Essays (1625) XXVII “Of Friendship”
But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – Essays (1625) XXVII “Of Friendship”
For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – Essays (1625) XXVII “Of Friendship”
A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – Essays (1625) XXVII “Of Friendship”
Friendship maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – Essays (1625) XXVII “Of Friendship”
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from others lands, but a continent that joins to them.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – Essays, “Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature,” (1597-1625)
Little minds need to practice despotism to relieve their nerves, just as great souls thirst for equality in friendship to exercise their hearts.
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) – Pierrette (1840), translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, Ch. IV: Pierrette.
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. We are the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts; we are all one flesh and blood.
George Bancroft (1800-1891)- Quoted in: Punch, Vol XII, London, 1847, “Penn Punch & The Smithfield Savages, p. 168.
Friendship is a crystal lake, sheltered from ruffling winds, wherein he who looks may see his better nature.
Christopher Bannister (?) – Quoted in The Wealth of Friendship, Wallice and Francis Rice Ed, Barse & Hopkins, NY, 1909, p145.
No friend’s a friend till [he shall] prove a friend.
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (1584-1616, 1579-1625) – Faithful Friends, Act III, Scene 3, line 50, 1608
Friendship cannot become permanent unless it becomes spiritual. There must be fellowship in the deepest things of the soul, community in the highest thoughts, sympathy with the best endeavors.
Hugh Black (1868-1953) – Friendship, Chapter 2, “The Culture of Friendship,” Project Gutenberg Ebook.
In the relationship of friends: “Each gives to the other, and each receives, and the fruit of the intercourse is more than either in himself possesses. Every individual relationship has contact with a universal. To reach out to the fuller life of love is a divine enchantment, because it leads to more than itself, and is the open door into the mystery of life.”
Hugh Black (1868-1953) –The Fruits of Friendship, Fleming H. Revel Co, NY, 1898, p10.
No friendship has done its work until it reaches the supremest satisfaction of spiritual communion.
Hugh Black (1868-1953) – Friendship, Chapter 2, “The Culture of Friendship,” Project Gutenberg Ebook.
Friendship above all ties does bind the heart; And faith in friendship is the noblest part.
Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery (1621-1679) – The History of Henry the Fifth, 1664
In the end there doesn’t have to be anyone who understands you. There just has to be someone who wants to.
Robert Brault – Blog: A Robert Brault Reader, “First Thoughts for 2013,”with links to his quotes here.
If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own; we must look at their truth to themselves, full as much as their truth to us.
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)– Letter, July 21, 1851, published in The Life of Charlotte Bronte, ch 26.
If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friend.
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) – Jane Eyre, ch 8
I have loved my friends as I do virtue, my soul, my God.
Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) – 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 (1605-1682) – Religio Medici (1642), Part II, Section V
The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) – To My Daughters, With Love, “To You on Your First Birthday,” (1967)
Friendship is love without his wings.
Lord Byron (1788-1824) – L’Amitié est l’Amour sans Ailes. St. 1. reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Don’t walk in front of me; I man not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) – Quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, 2006, p. 326.
For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one; for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt; whereas the absent one, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773), The Works of Lord Chesterfield, Including His Letters to His Son, By Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield Philip Stanhope · Harper and Brothers, 1838 p 276.
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) – Quoted in A Homiletic Encyclopaedia of Illustrations in Theology and Morals, Funk & Wagnalls, 1888, p360.
Friendship is the only point in human affairs concerning the benefit of which all, with one voice, agree.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.)- De Amicitia – On Friendship (44 B.C.)
Friendship embraces innumerable ends; turn where you will it is ever at your side; no barrier shuts it out; it is never untimely and never in the way.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) – De Amicitia – On Friendship (44 B.C.)
Friendship is nothing else than entire fellow feeling as to all things human and divine with mutual good-will and affection; and I doubt whether anything better than this, wisdom alone excepted, has been given to man.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) – De Amicitia – On Friendship (44 B.C.) tr Andrew Peabody, 1887, The Ethical Writings of Cicero, Section 6.
Friendship at once enhances the luster of prosperity, and by dividing and sharing adversity lessens its burden.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.)– De Amicitia – On Friendship, VI (44 B.C.) tr Andrew Peabody, 1887, The Ethical Writings of Cicero
For he, indeed, who looks into the face of a friend beholds, as it were, a copy of himself.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) -De Amicitia – On Friendship (44 B.C.), tr Andrew Peabody, 1887, The Ethical Writings of Cicero, Section 7
It is like taking the sun out of the world, to bereave human life of friendship.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) -De Amicitia – On Friendship, XII (44 B.C.) tr Andrew Peabody, 1887, The Ethical Writings of Cicero, Section 13.
It is virtue itself that produces and sustains friendship, not without virtue can friendship by any possibility exist.
sine virtute amicitia esse ullo pacto potest.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) -De Amicitia – On Friendship, VI (44 B.C.) tr Andrew Peabody, 1887, The Ethical Writings of Cicero, Section 6
A man’s best support is a very dear friend.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) -De Amicitia – On Friendship, VI (44 B.C.) tr Andrew Peabody, 1887, The Ethical Writings of Cicero, Section xxiii
Friendship is not to be sought for its wages, but because its revenue consists entirely in the love which it implies.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) -De Amicitia – On Friendship, VI (44 B.C.)
Non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici.
We are not born, we do not live for ourselves alone; our country, our friends, have a share in us.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) -De Officiis, Book I, section 22(44 B.C.)
It is not easy to distinguish between true and false affection, unless there occur one of those crises in which, as gold is tried by fire, so a faithful friendship may be tested by danger.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Tully)(106-43 B.C.) – Letters, Ad Familares, IX., 16, 2.
Friendship is a sheltering tree.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Youth and Age, st. 2 (1823-1832).
I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
William Cowper (1731-1800) – The Task, A Poem in Six Books, 1785
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 Maria Mulock Craik (8126-1887) A Life for a Life – Vol 1, Leipzig, 1859, p 270.
Quote Gallery 2
A true test of friendship, to sit or walk with a friend for an hour in perfect silence , without wearying of one another’s company.
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887) – Quoted in Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Olympia, Washington, 1901, p. 236.
For truly, the greatest of all external blessings is it to be able to lean your heart against another heart, faithful, tender, true, and tried, and record with a thankfulness that years deepen instead of diminishing, “I have got a friend!
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887) -“Female Friendships,” A Woman’s Thoughts about Women, London, 1858, 188.
Not perhaps until later life, until the follies, passions, and selfishness of youth have died out, do we . . . recognize the the inestimable blessing, the responsibility awful as sweet, of possessing or of being a friend.
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887) -“Female Friendships,” A Woman’s Thoughts about Women, London, 1858, 187.
About the greatest virtue a friend can have, is to be able to hold her tongue; and through this, like all virtues carried to extremity, may grow into a fault, and do great harm, still, it never can do so much harm as that horrible laxity and profligacy of speech which is a the root of half the quarrels, cruelties, and injustices of the world.
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887) – “Female Friendships,” A Woman’s Thoughts about Women, London, 1858, 181.
Human life is so full of pain, that once past the youthful delusion that a sad countenance is interesting, and an incurable woe the most delightful thing possible, the mind instinctively turns where it can get rest, and cheer and sunshine. And the friend who can bring to it the largest portion of these is, of a natural necessity, the most useful, the most welcome, and the most dear.
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887) – “Happy and Unhappy Women,” A Woman’s Thoughts about Women, London, 1858, 281.
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) Quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millenia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, 2006, p746. In the book Famous Quotes from 100 Great People for Mobile Reference (Google Play) the quote is designated Unsourced. Attributed to Disraeli, references to it in a Google Books Search appear rarely in print before 1980.
I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) – Essays – Friendship (1841)
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.
Attributed to Emerson – but not found in any sourced material earlier than 1960. It may be misattributed.
A friend, therefore, is a sort of paradox in nature. I who alone am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being, in all its height, variety, and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) – Essays – Friendship, First Series, (1841)
I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with the roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the coldest thing we know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) – Essays – Friendship (1841)
Delicious is a just and firm encounter of two in a thought, in a feeling.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) – Essays – Friendship (1841)
We take care of our health; we lay up money; we make our roof tight, and our clothing sufficient; but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of all, —friends?
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) – Essay – The Conduct of Life, Considerations By the Way, in The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol III, Hearst’s International Library Co, NY, 1914, p. 180
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) “Friendship,” in Essays: First Series (1841)
Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fiber of the human heart. The laws of friendship are great, austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden sweetness. We snatch at the lowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen. We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) – Essays – Friendship, First Series, (1841)
A sure friend is known in unsure circumstances.
Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur
Quintus Ennius – Hecuba (c 180 B.C.E) Also quoted by Cicero in Laelius 17.64.
How can life be worth living, if devoid Of the calm trust reposed by friend in friend? What sweeter joy than in the kindred soul, Whose converse differs not from self-communion?
Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC) – Quoted in Marcus Tullius Cicero. “De Amicitia,” Scipio’s Dream, Section 6, tr. Andrew Peabody, 1887, The Ethical Writings of Cicero
Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.
Epicurus (341BC-250BC) – Soverign Maxims (28)
It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confidence of their help.
Epicurus (341BC-250BC) – A Life Worthy of the Gods – The Life and Work of Epicurus, Cassius Amicus, Humphries Translation, VS34.
One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.
Euprides – Orestes (480 F.C.) Translated by William Arrowsmith
Friendship is the shadow of the evening which strengthens with the setting sun of life.
Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) – Quoted in A Homiletic Encyclopaedia of Illustrations in Theology and Morals, Funk & Wagnalls, 1888, p360.
Trouble is a sieve through which we sift our acquaintances. Those too big to pass through are our friends.
Arlene Francis (1907-2001) – Quoted in Typo Graphic, E. Stuart, 1938, p. 226
When all is said and done, friendship is the only trustworthy fabric of the affections. So-called LOVE is a delirious inhuman state of mind: when hot it substitutes indulgence for fair play; when cold it is cruel, but friendship is warmth in cold, firm ground in a bog.
Miles Franklin (1879-1954) – My Career Goes Bung, 1946
Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) —Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1735.
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) – Sand and Foam (1926)
A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) – Blue flame: the love letters of Kahlil Gibran to May Ziadah, Longman, 1983, p118.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures, for in the dew of little things, the heart finds its meaning and is refreshed.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) -in The Prophet, “On Friendship,” (1923)
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 (1883-1931) -in The Prophet, “On Friendship,” (1923)
The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit-this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.
Die Welt ist so leer, wenn man nur Berge, Flüsse und Städte darin denkt, aber hie und da jemand zu wissen, der mit uns übereinstimmt, mit dem wir auch stillschweigend fortleben, das macht uns dieses Erdenrund erst zu einem bewohnten Garten.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre,” in Goethes Sämmtliche Werke, vol. 7 (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1874), p. 520
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 (1749-1832) -Torquato Tasso, I. 3. 68
Wenn wir sagtest Du, die Menschen nur nehmen, wie sie sind, so machen wir sie schlechter; wenn wir sie behandeln als wären sie, was sie sein sollten, so bringen wir sie dahin, wohin sie zu bringen sind.
‘When we take people,’ thous wouldst say,’merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.”Translated by Thomas Carlyle, 1824
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, 1795. See analysis by the quote investigator here.
Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) – The Good Nature’d Man, Act 1, Mr. Honeywood speaker.
Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil. ‘Tis the sole remedy against misfortune, the very ventilation of the soul.
Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658) – The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647), Maxim clvii, Translated by Joseph Jacobs, 1892, p95.
To keep is more important than to make friends.
Saberlos conservar es más que el hazerlos amigos.
Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658) – The Art of Worldy Wisdom, (1647), Maxim clvii, Translated by Joseph Jacobs, 1892, p95.
Have Friends. ‘Tis a second existence.
Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658)– The Art of Worldy Wisdom, Maxim cxi, Translated by Joseph Jacobs, 1892, p64.
The friend of my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) Attributed to Grant. Earliest quotation found in Google Book search in Forbes’s Thoughts on the Business of Life, 1960. No citations given outside of the attribution.
Friendship is a religion between two human souls; the truest religion is a friendship between the human and the divine.
Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus (1856-1921) -“Friendship and Religion,” The Wealth of Friendship, Wallace and Frances Rice, Barse & Hopkins, 1909, p9.
The making of friends who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man’s success in life.
Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) – Quoted in The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, V.1– By George Derby, James Terry White, White & Co., NY, 1906, p. 739.
Friendship is love without its flowers or veil.
Augustus Hare (J.C. Hare) (1834-1903) – Quoted in Day’s Collacon, an Encyclopedia of Prose Quotations, ed E. Day, NY, NY, 1884, p. 319
To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) – Characteristics, In the Manner of Rochefoucauld’s Maxims, CCXXXV, The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, Vol 1, p390.
True friendship is self-love at second hand; where, as in a flattering mirror we may see our virtues magnified and our errors softened, and where we may fancy our opinion of ourselves confirmed by an impartial and faithful witness.
William Hazlett (1778-1830)– “On the Spirit of Obligations,” The Plain Speaker (1826).
There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days,
No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise:
Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) – “No Time Like the Old Time,” The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, p. 222 (1895, reprinted 1975).
Love is the life of friendship.
James Howell (1594-1666) – Poem: Touching the vertu and the use of Familiar Letters, line 1. in Poems on several choice and various subjects occasionally composed by an eminent author ; collected and published by Sergeant-Major P.F. ,
The finest friendships are between those who can do without each other.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) – Love, life & work, Elbert Hubbard, 1906, p. 69
I loved my friend for his gentleness, his candor, his good repute, his freedom even from my own livelier manner, his calm and reasonable kindness. It was not any particular talent that attracted me to him, or i anything striking whatsoever. I should say in one word, it was his goodness.
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) – The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, 2 Vol, Harper and Brothers, 1850, Quoted in The International Monthly Magazine of Literature, Science, and Art, Volume 1, 1850, p. 131
When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow.
Washington Irving (1783-1859) – The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, “Roscoe,” Vol I, London, 1822, pp. 32-32.
I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man’s milk and restorative cordial.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) – Letter: Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, August 17, 1811. Ford, Paul Leicester, ed. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 11. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905, p. 213
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) – Letter to Maria Cosway, October 12, 1786, “My Head and My Heart.”
Though love cannot dwell in a heart, friendship may. Friendship takes less room—it has no wings.
Douglas Jerrold (1803-1857) – Specimens of Douglas Jerrold’s Wit, ed Blanchard Jerrold, 3rd ed, Ticknor and Fields, 1859, p. 36.
Oh, friendship! thou divinest alchemist, that man should ever profane thee!
Douglas Jerrold (1803-1857) – Specimens of Douglas Jerrold’s Wit, ed Blanchard Jerrold, 3rd ed, Ticknor and Fields, 1859, p. 64.
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.
Ben Jonson (1572-1637) – Cynthia’s Revels, Act III Sc.2
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 (1709-1784) – Quoted in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, note to entry 1755 (1791).
Thus it is that my friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation.
Helen Keller (1880-1968)– The Story of My Life (1903), p 77.
Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) – The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, XIX
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God had no need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.
C.S. Lewis – (1898-1963) – C.S Lewis’s Little Book of Wisdom, compiled by Andrea Kirk Assaf and Kelly Anne Leahy, First Published by Hampton Roads Publishing company, Inc, 1918. Harper Collins, 2018.
The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) – Letter to Joseph Gillespie (13 July 1849).
I desire 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 (1809-1865) – Reply to the Missouri Committee of Seventy (1864)
A man who is not a good friend to himself cannot be so to any one else.
Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913) – The Use of Life (1894), ch. XII: Social Life, p.191
No young man starting in life could have better capital than plenty of friends. They will strengthen his credit, support him in every great effort, and make him what, unaided, he could never be. Friends of the right sort will help him more – to be happy and successful – than much money.
Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924) Founder, Success Magazine, “The value of friends,” Current Literature, VGol. XXXVI, 1904, p101.
There is nothing we like to see so much as the gleam of pleasure in a person’s eye when he feels that we have sympathized with him, understood him, interested ourself in his welfare. At these moments something fine and spiritual passes between two friends. These moments are the moments worth living.
Don Marquis (1878-1937) Prefaces, Appleton and Company, NY, 1919, p 97.
It’s no good trying to keep up old friendships. It’s painful on both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965 ) – Cakes and Ale, Doubleday, 1930, p11.
No love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever.
François Mauriac (1885-1970) – Quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, 2006 by Larry Chang , p. 403.
Friendship is the cadence of divine melody melting through the heart.
Charles Arundell St. John Mildmay (1820-1904) Quoted in Treasury of Thought, Forming an Encyclopedia of Quotations from Ancient and Modern Authors, Tenth edition, M.M. Ballou, Houghton Mifflin, 1884, p191.
I am learning to live close to the lives of my friends without ever seeing them. No miles of any measurement can separate your soul from mine.
John Muir – Letters to a Friend; Written to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, 1866-1879
Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.
Gloria Naylor (1950 – ) – Quoted in Book of African-American Quotations, ed Joslyn Pine, Dover Thrift, 2011, p. 133
In friendship similarity of character has more weight than kinship.
Cornelius Nepos (110 BC – 25 BC) – Atticus, 5.
Hold a true friend with both hands.
Nigerian Proverb
What I cannot love, I overlook.
Anais Nin (1903-1977)- Diary Of Anais Nin Volume 5 1947-1955: Vol. 5 (1947-1955)
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.
Anais Nin (1903-1977)- Diary entry (March 1937)
When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean 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 (1932-1996) – “Care,” Out of Solitude:Three Meditations on the Christian Life, Ave Maria Press, IN, 1974
Friendship and love are impossible without a mutual vulnerability.
Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) – “Our Life in Action,” Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life, Ave Maria Press, IN, 1974, p 24.
The friend who cares makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters. In fact, it matters more than pain, illness, or even death.
Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) – “Care,” Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life, Ave Maria Press, IN, 1974
“Intret amicitiae nomine tectus amor.”
Love will enter cloaked in friendship’s name.
Ovid (43 BC – 17 AD) – Be Arte Amandi, I., 720.
Friendship is the next pleasure we may hope for: and where we find it not at home, or have no home to find it in, we may seek it abroad. It is an union of spirits, a marriage of hearts, and the bond thereof virtue.
William Penn (1644-1718) – Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims , London, 1907, Maxim 106, p 29.
There can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom. Friendship loves a free Air, and will not be penned up in straight and narrow Enclosures. It will speak freely, and act so too; and take nothing ill where no ill is meant; nay, where it is, ’twill easily forgive, and forget too, upon small Acknowledgments.
William Penn (1644-1718) –Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims , London, 1907, Maxim 107, p 29.
Friends are true twins in soul; they sympathize in every thing, and have the love and aversion.
William Penn (1644-1718) –Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims , London, 1907, Maxim 109, p 29.
A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.
William Penn (1644-1718) – Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims , London, 1907, Maxim 111, p 30.
You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool of yourself he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.
Laurence J. Peter (1919-1990) – Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for our time, Bantam, p206 (1978)
Friends should have all things in common.
Plato (427 BC – 347 BC) – Phaedrus, Sec 279.
Semper in absentes felicior aestus amantes
Always in absent lovers love’s tide flows stronger.
Sextus Propertius – Cynthia (29 B.C.E.)
You cannot put water or fire to more uses than friendship serves.
Proverb – Quoted in “De Amicitia” – On Friendship (44 B.C.), tr Andrew Peabody, 1887, The Ethical Writings of Cicero, Secton 6
Our triumphs seem hollow unless we have friends to share them, and our failures are made bearable by their understanding.
James Rachels (1941-2003) – The Elements of Moral Philosophy (1999), p. 183.
We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.
Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825) – Quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts, ed Tyrone Edwards, Dickerson Co, Detroit, MI, 1908, p187.
The reason for our being so changeable in friendship is this: — it is as difficult to know the qualities of the heart, as it is easy to know those of the head.
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) – Maxims, and Moral Reflections. By the Duke de la Rochefoucault, Volume 8, Edinburgh, 1796, Maxim CL, p.45.
The greatest effort of friendship is, not the discovery of our faults to a friend, but an endeavor to convince our friend of his own.
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) – Maxims, and Moral Reflections. By the Duke de la Rochefoucault, Volume 8, Edinburgh, 1796, Maxim CLXII, p.47.
In friendship, as in love, we are often happier in our ignorance than our knowledge.
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) – Maxims, and Moral Reflections. By the Duke de la Rochefoucault, Volume 8, Edinburgh, 1796, Maxim CLX, p.47.
We love everything for our own sakes: we follow our own taste and inclination, even when we prefer our friends to ourselves: and yet this preference alone it is that constitutes true and perfect friendship.
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) – Maxims, and Moral Reflections. By the Duke de la Rochefoucault, Volume 8, Edinburgh, 1796, Maxim CLI, p.45.
Many people will walk in and out of your life, But only true friends leave footprints in your heart.
Eleanor Roosevelt – Grandmère: A Personal History of Eleanor Roosevelt, David B. Roosevelt, Manuela Dunn-Mascett, Time Warner, 2002, preface.
Have friends, not for the sake of receiving, but of giving.
Joseph Roux (1834-1905) – Meditations of a Parish Priest, Pensées, translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1886, Part 9, XII
What is love? two souls and one flesh; friendship? two bodies and one soul.
Joseph Roux (1834-1905) – Meditations of a Parish Priest, Pensées, translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1886, Part 9, XXXI. See also the quote above from Aristotle and its references.
We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower, that man who has lost his wife . . . And that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing his friend, by what name do we call him? . . . Here every human language holds its peace in impotence.
Joseph Roux (1834-1905) – Meditations of a Parish Priest, Pensées, translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1886, Part 9, LIV
No medicine is more valuable , none more efficacious, none better suited to the cure of our temporal ills than a friend to whom we may turn for consolation in time of trouble, and with whom we may share happiness in time of joy.
Saint Ailred of Rievaulx (1109-1166) – Quoted in The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations, ed. Martin H. Manser, 2001, p. 117.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
The only rose without thorns is friendship.
Mlle. de Scudéri (1607-1701) – Quoted in French Authors: A Hand-book of French Literature By Mildred Lewis Rutherford, Franklin Printing Co., Atlanta, 1906, p. 618.
Of all the felicities, the most charming is that of a firm and gentle friendship. It sweetens all our cares, dispels our sorrows, and counsels us in all extremities. Nay, if there were no other comfort in it than the pare exercise of so generous a virtue, even for that single reason a man would not be without it; it is a sovereign antidote against all calamities — even against the fear of death itself.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. – 65 A.D.) – Seneca’s Morals, tr. Sir Roger L’Estrange, 1793, p. 209.
Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with him as with yourself.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. – 65 A.D.) – Epistles Epistle III, On True and False Friendship, Moral Epistles, tr R. Gummere. The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1917-25. 3 vols.
Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. . . . . . No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. – 65 A.D.) – Epistles Epistle VI, On Sharing Knowledge, Moral Epistles, tr R. Gummere. The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1917-25. 3 vols
We have no more right to put our discordant states of mind into the lives of those around us and rob them of their sunshine and brightness than we have to enter their houses and steal their silverware.
Julian Seton (1862-1950) Quoted in Before I pour this over you head, Remember that I love you. Barbara Ann Jayne, Rose Dog Books, Pittsburgh, 2011, p. 28.
At friendship’s heart is a continuous act of collaboration…Without the desire and ability to create new understandings, a relationship can’t grow —it can only be maintained.
Michael Schrage (1976 – ) No More Teams: Mastering the Dynamics of creative collaboration, Currency Paperback, NY, 1989, p. 16
Friends are the family you choose.
Jess C. Scott – The Other Side of Life, Jess C. Scott Pub, 2011, p86.
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence.
Sidney Smith –Lady Holland’s Memoir (1855), “Of Friendship”
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
Socrates (470-399 BC) Quoted in Friends Intelligencer, Vol 30, Philadelphia, 1873-1874, p. 246.
For one who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession.
Sophocles (497-406 BC) Greek Tragedies III, Sophocles: Philoctetes, voice of Neoptolemus, ed David Grene & Richmond Lattimore, 3rd Ed., Univ of Chicago Press, p. 76.
No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.
Robert Southey (1774-1843) – The Doctor, Warter, John Wood Ed, 1848, p187.
Vida fin amigo, muerte fin testigo
A life without a friend ends in death without a witness.
Spanish proverb – Quoted in A New Dictionary, Spanish and English and English and Spanish, ed. Capt. John Stephens, London, 1726, p. 620
No greater burden can be born by an individual than to know none who cares or understands.
Arthur H. Stainback (1909-1994) Quoted in I Want to Be A.L.I.V.E., Workbook by Aaron Sams, p. 175.
We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.
Robert Lewis Stevenson (1850-1894) – Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, 1879, Introduction
For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.
Robert Lewis Stevenson (1850-1894)- Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, 1879, ch 10
So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.
Robert Lewis Stevenson – Across the Plains, “Lay Morals” (1892) – Chapter 4
Confidence is the only bond of friendship
Publilius Syrus, Moral Sayings (1st C. B.C.)
Some friendships are made by nature, some by contract, some by interest, and some by souls.
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) A Discourse of the Nature and Offices of Friendship, in the complete works of Jeremy Taylor in 10 Vol, VOL 1, London, 1854 p.86
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) – Letter to Mrs. Emerson (Familiar Letters), 76.
Friends…they cherish one another’s hopes. they are kind to one another’s dreams.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) – A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers.
Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) – Walden, Conclusion, paragraph 13.
We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our Friends’ thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) – A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Wednesday
What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) – Letter to Mrs. Emerson, June 20, 1843, in Familiar letters of Thoreau, ed. Sanborn, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., NY, 1985, p. 89.
Friendship is the holiest of gifts;
God can bestow nothing more sacred upon us!
It enhances every joy, mitigates every pain.
Everyone can have a friend,
Who himself knows how to be a friend.
Christoph August Tiedge (1752-1841) – “Friendship,” Gems for the Fireside, ed Otis Henry Tiffany, A.W. Mills, MI, 1883, p. 819.
In all holiest and most unselfish love, friendship is the purest element of the affection. No love in any relation of life can be at its best if the element of friendship be lacking. And no love can transcend, in its possibilities of noble and ennobling exaltation, a love that is pure friendship.
Henry Clay Trumbull (1830-1903) – Friendship, the Master Passion, 1891, p18.
Friendship by its very nature consists in loving, rather than in being loved.
Henry Clay Trumbull (1830-1903) – Friendship, the Master Passion, 1891, p19.
The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) – Pudd’nhead Wilson, ch 8, “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar,” 1894
The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter whom he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us—those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name—may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolute, unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world—the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous—is his dog.
George Graham Vest (1830-1904) – “Eulogy on the Dog,” speech during lawsuit, 1870.—Congressional Record, October 16, 1914, vol. 51, Appendix, pp. 1235–36.
[Friendship] is a marriage of the soul., it is a contract between two sensitive and virtuous persons. I say sensitive because a monk, a solitary may not be at all wicked and live without knowing friendship. I say virtuous because the wicked have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.
Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778) – Section on Friendship in the Philosophical Dictionary (1764) by Voltaire. Quoted in The Emigrants, Gilbert Imlay, 1988.
Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil.
Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778) – Letter to Nicolas-Claude Thieriot (1734)
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 (1732-1799) – Letter to Bushrod Washington (15 January 1783)
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 (1732-1799) —Social Maxims: Friendship.
Some people come into our lives
and they move our souls to sing
and make our spirits dance.
They help us to see that everything on earth
is part of the incredibility of life…
and that it is always there
for us to take of its joy.
Some people come into our lives
and leave footprints on our hearts
and we are never ever the same.
Flavia Weedn -From the Poem, Some People
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) – Quoted in The Bookman, “Portraits of American Authors,” Vol 42, 1915-1916, p. 536.
Friendship’s the wine of life; but friendship new (Not Such was his) is neither strong nor pure.
Edward Young, Poet (1683-1765) – Night Thoughts (Best remembered for this work) (1742-1745) Night II, Line 582.
- David Alan
- Last Updated November 9, 2024