quotations about friendship
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another? Is there so little gall poured into our cup, that we must need help to drink that of our neighbor?
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Mrs. Cosway, Oct. 12, 1786
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
Only friendship which can stand occasional plain speaking is worth having.
LIN YUTANG
Between Tears and Laughter
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]
The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
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
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"
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"
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
A friend is one who does not laugh when you are in a ridiculous position.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
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
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
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
A real friendship ought to introduce each person to unexpected weirdness in the other.
JARON LANIER
You Are Not a Gadget
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
The true beauty of friendship is that it is bottomless.
ROGER & SALLY HORCHOW
The Art of Friendship
Friendship's eye is often blind.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
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
For there is no man, that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral