quotations about friendship
Only friendship which can stand occasional plain speaking is worth having.
LIN YUTANG
Between Tears and Laughter
As the circle of friends is enlarged, the bonds of friendship are relaxed and weakened.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success -- yours or his.
FRANKLIN P. JONES
Saturday Evening Post, November 29, 1953
The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.
EURIPIDES
Aegeus [fragment]
Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies--neighbors are kind enough for that--but to do the like office to our spirits.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Friendship
We should thank God that He did not give us the power of hearing through walls; otherwise there would be no such thing as friendship.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
A friend is one who does not laugh when you are in a ridiculous position.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, impossible to be overturned, of his foundations.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Essays
Those who would have Friendship confined to the narrowest compass, have notions of it the most sublime: Tho' number, if practicable, may be highly useful.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
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
"Behavior"
The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
This is the end of a beautiful friendship
It ended a moment ago
This is the end of a beautiful friendship
I know 'cause your eyes told me so
DUKE ELLINGTON
"A Beautiful Friendship"
I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God, the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts?
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Essays
The language of Friendship is not words but meanings.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Friendship
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
Out of Solitude
Friendship can only exist between persons with similar interests and points of view. Man and woman by the conventions of society are born with different interests and different points of view.
AUGUST STRINDBERG
The Son of a Servant
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
ELIE WIESEL
From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences
Friendship has been called the sweetener of life. It is a compound made up of truth and kindness, prudence and piety.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude