quotations about friends
Tell me, why are the old friends kind,
And ever the tenderest, too?
Youth has no art, but an open mind,
And its love is sincere and true.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Tell Me"
Be a friend, and thou shalt have friends.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Friends are the true Sceptres of Princes.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1754
We must make friends in prosperity, if we would have their help in adversity.
AESOP
"The Sick Kite", Aesop's Fables
When an intimate friend turns from us, we often find him the most inveterate enemy.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face.
MAYA ANGELOU
Letter to My Daughter
For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother.
HOMER
The Odyssey
Friends are true twins in soul.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
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
The Prophet
He makes no friends who never made a foe.
ALFRED TENNYSON
Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir
It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Notebooks
Either be a true friend or a mere stranger: a true friend will delight to do good--a mere stranger will do no harm.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Everybody is friends when things are bad enough.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Islands in the Stream
One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
Who hath one friend, of straight and loyal mind,
But one, of all the million swarms of men,
Is strong, beyond the energy of ten,
Is rich, beyond the level of mankind.
WILLIAM WILSEY MARTIN
"One Friend"
My friends' happiness forms part of my own.
PEDRO ALEXIS TABENSKY
Happiness: Personhood
Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.
WILLIAM JAMES
attributed, The Thought and Character of William James
Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Municipal Gallery Re-Visited
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
RICHARD BACH
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Break not an ancient friendship; keep it hale;
Stir round its roots, that it be green of heart;
Let not the spirit of its growth depart:
It is a power to brave the strongest gale.
WILLIAM WILSEY MARTIN
"Friendship"