quotations about friends
You cannot expect that a friend should be like the atmosphere, which confers all manner of benefits upon you, and without which indeed it would be impossible to live, but at the same time is never in your way.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
The reason we have few friends in adversity, is, because we have no true ones in prosperity.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
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"
There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.
J. K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
We must make friends in prosperity, if we would have their help in adversity.
AESOP
"The Sick Kite", Aesop's Fables
Adversity shows whether we have friends, or only the shadows of friends.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
Friends made fast seldom remain fast.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Friends such as we desire are dreams and fables, yet we never quite give up the hope of finding them.
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
Trivia
One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
Friends are the true Sceptres of Princes.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1754
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
Whoever neglects old friends for the sake of new deserves what he gets if he loses both.
AESOP
Fables
Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Be a friend, and thou shalt have friends.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
It is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to George Washington Parke Custis, Nov. 28, 1796
A man with a pleasant disposition finds friends everywhere, and makes friends where people of a contrary nature see only enemies.
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
Anyone may have friends in prosperity, but to have them in adversity, is an object of superior management.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
I have no friends, there are only people I love.
LOUIS ARAGON
response to Proust Questionaire, Livres de France, Jan. 1961
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"
You can go through life and make new friends every year--every month practically--but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency