quotations about friendship
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
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Memoir
The language of Friendship is not words but meanings.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Friendship
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
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
Be a friend, and thou shalt have friends.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
A real friendship ought to introduce each person to unexpected weirdness in the other.
JARON LANIER
You Are Not a Gadget
Lonesome creates diseases that friendship cures.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
Friendship is not an obsolete sentiment. It is as true now as in Aristotle's time that no one would care to live without friends, though he had all other good things. It is still necessary to our life in its largest sense.
HUGH B. BLACK
Friendship
Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Friendship", Essays
We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Essays
Friendships are a reflection of who you are and what you need. While we are constantly evolving, there comes a time when we know what the make-and-breaks are in friendship. And once you know what your deal breakers are, naturally you will begin to seek out friendships that fit. Unfortunately, we also know that some friendships will get left behind.
SA'IYDA SHABAZZ
"This Is Why Some Friendships End--And Others Last", Scary Mommy, February 19, 2019
Friendship extends about four city blocks.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Friendship can be really tested only in bad times.
DONALD TRUMP
Playboy, Mar. 1990
The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasure.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
Friendship ... is essential to intellectuals. You can date the evolving life of a mind, like the age of a tree, by the rings of friendship formed by the expanding central trunk.
MARY McCARTHY
How I Grew
While friendship itself has an air of eternity about it, seeming to transcend all natural limits, there is hardly any emotion so utterly at the mercy of time. We form friendships, and grow out of them. It might almost be said that we cannot retain the faculty of friendship unless we are continually making new friends.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
The Friendship of Christ
Friendship can exist between persons of different sexes, without any coarse or sensual feelings; yet a woman always looks upon a man as a man, and so a man will look upon a woman as a woman.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
The Book of Friendship