quotations about friendship
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
Only friendship which can stand occasional plain speaking is worth having.
LIN YUTANG
Between Tears and Laughter
True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
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"
Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success -- yours or his.
FRANKLIN P. JONES
Saturday Evening Post, November 29, 1953
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
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
A friend is one who does not laugh when you are in a ridiculous position.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
The true beauty of friendship is that it is bottomless.
ROGER & SALLY HORCHOW
The Art of 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
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
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
Friendship's eye is often blind.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
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
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
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 is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Memoir