quotations about friends
People are known by the company they keep, and it is always wise to select the best, for if the lower is chosen, it is impossible to rise; but if the best is not agreeable, it is easy to come down. Of course we must live worthy of the best associates, otherwise we will be forced down, and our humiliation will be greater than if we had never aspired to associate with the best people.
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
I'm so happy 'cause today
I found my friends.
They're in my head.
KURT COBAIN
Lithium
If he draw you aside from your proper end,
No enemy like a bosom friend.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
"Blackberries"
We console ourselves with several friends for not having found one real one.
ANDRé MAUROIS
An Art of Living
He brings thee joy, thy foes dismays,
Thy secrets hides, proclaims thy praise,
With timely gifts relieves thy need,
Thus may'st thou know the "friend indeed."
BHARTRHARI
"The Path of Altruism"
'Tis more dishonourable to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
A shady friend for torrid days
Is easier to find
Than one of higher temperature
For frigid hour of mind.
EMILY DICKINSON
"A shady friend for torrid days"
Equals make the best friends.
AESOP
"The Two Pots", Aesop's Fables
Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.
STEPHEN KING
The Last Gunslinger
Friends have all things in common.
PLATO
Phaedrus
How delightful it is to see a friend after a length of absence! How delightful to chide him for that length of absence to which we owe such delight.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
The new friends whom we make after attaining a certain age and by whom we would fain replace those whom we have lost, are to our old friends what glass eyes, false teeth and wooden legs are to real eyes, natrual teeth and legs of flesh and bone.
CHAMFORT
The Cynic's Breviary
The going away of friends does not make the remainder more precious. It takes so much from them as there was a common link. A. B. and C. make a party. A. dies. B. not only loses A. but all A.'s part in C. C. loses A.'s part in B., and so the alphabet sickens by subtraction of interchangeables.
CHARLES LAMB
letter to William Wordsworth, Mar. 20, 1822
"Stay" is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Friendship: A Book of Quotations
The young compliment their greatness on the number of their friends; the old, on the confidence of them.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Those who have resources within themselves, who can dare to live alone, want friends the least, but at the same time, know how to prize them the most.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
A false Friend and a Shadow, attend only while the Sun shines.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1756
It's safer to have a good enemy than a bad friend.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Reverdy Johnson, Jul. 26, 1862
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"