quotations about friendship
The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
The true beauty of friendship is that it is bottomless.
ROGER & SALLY HORCHOW
The Art of Friendship
It is never easier to forget friends than when we imagine they have forgotten us--friendship, like love, requires reciprocal assurance of continuity.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
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
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"
Choose a friend as thou dost a wife, 'till Death separate you.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Friendship should be more than biting Time can sever.
T. S. ELIOT
Murder in the Cathedral
The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasure.
JOSEPH ADDISON
Cato
The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that can be joined; more strict than any of which we have experience. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution.
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
Of what use the friendliest disposition even, if there are no hours given to Friendship, if it is forever postponed to unimportant duties and relations? Friendship first, Friendship last.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Friendship
Though most of the friendships of the world ill deserve the name of friendships; yet a man may make use of them on occasion, as of a traffic whose returns are uncertain, and in which 'tis usual to be cheated.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
We often choose a friend as we do a mistress, for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Essays
Whatever dissolves friendship should, at least, be equal in importance to that which formed it.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
The language of Friendship is not words but meanings.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Friendship
If you're ever in a jam, here I am
If you're ever in a mess, S-O-S
If you ever feel so happy, you land in jail, I'm your bail.
It's friendship, friendship, just a perfect blendship.
When other friendships have been forgot,
Ours will still be hot.
JUDY GARLAND
"Friendship"
Some friendships are formed by a commonality of interests and ideas: you both love judo or camping or making your own sausage. Other friendships are forged in alliance against a common enemy.
DAVID SEDARIS
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Friendship can be really tested only in bad times.
DONALD TRUMP
Playboy, Mar. 1990
Close friendships are one of life's miracles--that a few people get to know you deeply, all your messy or shadowy stuff along with the beauty and sweetness, and they still love you. Not only still love you, but love you more and more deeply. I would do anything for my closest friends, and they would do almost anything for me, and that is about as spiritual a truth as you can get.
ANNE LAMOTT
interview, Friends Journal, Jan. 30, 2013