“Friends . . old friends. . .
One sees how it ends.
A woman looks
Or a man tells lies,
And the pleasant brooks
And the quiet skies,
Ruined with brawling
And caterwauling,
Enchant no more
As they did before;
And so it ends
with friends.
Friends . . old friends . . .
And what if it ends?
Shall we dare to shirk
What we live to learn?
It has done its work,
It has served its turn;
And, forgive and forget
Or canker and fret,
We can be no more
As we were before.
When it ends it ends
with friends.”
A Book of Verses (1888)
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William Ernest Henley29
English poet, critic and editor 1849–1903Related quotes
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quoted in Warren Roberts (2000). Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Louis Prieur, Revolutionary. p. 321.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, The Trumpet of Conscience (1967)
Variant: In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
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The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis
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Source: Reply to Missouri Committee of Seventy (30 September 1864)
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Song lyrics
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James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet
Friends.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).