Friendship quotes

A collection of quotes on the topic of life, relationship, friendship, for friend.

Best friendship quotes

James Joyce photo

“There's no friends like the old friends.”

Source: Dubliners

Walt Whitman photo

“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist
Aristotle photo

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Variant: A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.
Variant: Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Source: The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, p. 188; also reported in various sources as:
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

Jean De La Fontaine photo
Jerome photo

“The friendship that can cease has never been real.”
Amicitia quae desinere potest vera numquam fuit.

Jerome (345–420) Catholic saint and Doctor of the Church

Letter 3
Letters

Charlie Kaufman photo
Paulo Coelho photo

“You are what you believe yourself to be.”

Source: The Witch of Portobello (2007), p. 152.
Context: You are what you believe yourself to be.
Don't be like those people who believe in "positive thinking" and tell themselves that they're loved and strong and capable. You don't need to do that because you know it already. And when you doubt it — which happens, I think, quite often at this stage of evolution — do as I suggested. Instead of trying to prove that you're better than you think, just laugh. Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it. Now go back and meet all those people who think you know everything. Convince yourself that they're right, because we all know everything, it's merely a question of believing.
Believe.

Jerome photo

“True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks.”

Jerome (345–420) Catholic saint and Doctor of the Church
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Love is blind. Friendship closes its eyes.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Henry David Thoreau photo

“The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings.”

Source: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Friendship quotes

Thomas Aquinas photo
Oprah Winfrey photo

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Variant: Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”

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.

Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Bob Marley photo
Maya Angelou photo

“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”

Variant: Be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud.
Source: Letter to My Daughter

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

Variant: You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 52 (in 1998 edition)

Helen Keller photo

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched... but are felt in the heart.

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Dr. Seuss photo
Helen Keller photo

“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Variant: Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

Woodrow Wilson photo

“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Red Cross Speech http://books.google.com/books?id=f6l-dsvnjhEC&pg=PA406&dq=%22Friendship+is+the+only+cement%22, New York (18 May 1918)
1910s

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Paul Éluard photo

“There is another world, but it is in this one.”

Paul Éluard (1895–1952) French poet

Il y a assurément un autre monde, mais il est dans celui-ci...
Œuvres complètes, vol. 1, Gallimard, 1968.

Thomas Aquinas photo

“To love is to will the good of the other.”

II-II, q. 26, art. 6
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

Epicurus photo
William Shakespeare photo
Jane Austen photo
Muhammad Ali photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo
Cosimo de' Medici photo

“We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.”

Cosimo de' Medici (1389–1464) First ruler of the Medici political dynasty

Attributed to Cosimo de' Medici, Duke of Florence, in Apothegms by Francis Bacon, (1624) No. 206

A.A. Milne photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”

Variant: Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Aristotle photo

“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

As quoted in The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women (1992) by Rosalie Maggio, p. 130

Sylvia Plath photo
Marcel Proust photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Plutarch photo
Mindy Kaling photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Jim Henson photo

“There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Source: Favorite Songs from Jim Henson's Muppets

Zig Ziglar photo

“If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

As quoted in The Power of Respect : Benefit from the Most Forgotten Element of Success (2009) by Deborah Norville, p. 65

Aristotle photo

“Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”

Book VIII, 1155a.5
Nicomachean Ethics
Source: The Nicomachean Ethics

Oscar Wilde photo
Charles Lamb photo

“Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Source: The Life, Letters and Writings of Charles Lamb

Amos Bronson Alcott photo

“Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.”

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American teacher and writer

Misattributed
Source: Concord Days

Oscar Wilde photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Nicole Richie photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

His response when "accused of treating his opponents with too much courtesy and kindness, and when it was pointed out to him that his whole duty was to destroy them", as quoted in More New Testament Words (1958) by William Barclay; either this anecdote or Lincoln's reply may have been adapted from a reply attributed to Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund:
:* Some courtiers reproached the Emperor Sigismond that, instead of destroying his conquered foes, he admitted them to favour. “Do I not,” replied the illustrious monarch, “effectually destroy my enemies, when I make them my friends?”
::* "Daily Facts" in The Family Magazine Vol. IV (1837), p. 123 http://books.google.de/books?id=aW0EAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA123&dq=destroy; also quoted as simply in "Do I not effectually destroy my enemies, in making them my friends?" in The Sociable Story-teller (1846)
Disputed

Mark Twain photo
Albert Schweitzer photo

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Variant: Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.

Sam Levenson photo
Bram Stoker photo

“I will not let you go into the unknown alone.”

Bram Stoker (1847–1912) Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula
Jim Morrison photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
A.A. Milne photo

“You are stronger than you seem,
Braver than you believe,
and smarter than you think you are.”

Variant: You are braver than you believe,
Stronger than you seem,
And smarter than you think(:
Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Tennessee Williams photo

“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Actually by the Chinese philosopher, educator and popular lecturer Dr. Tehyi Hsieh, Chinese epigrams inside out, and proverbs, 1948.
Misattributed
Variant: Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“We see the world not as it is, but as we are.”

Dag Redwing hickory Bluefield

Passage (Vol. III in Tetralogy) (2008), p. 163
The Sharing Knife, Passage (Vol. III in Tetralogy) (2008)

Florbela Espanca photo

“To live is to not know that one is living”

Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet

Diary (20 April, 1930), quoted in Afinado desconcerto (2002), p. 262
Context: Sometimes I start looking at the mirror and examining myself, feature by feature: eyes, mouth, shape of the forehead, eyelids curve, the face line... And this vulgar and hideous-looking, grotesque and miserable amalgam, would it know how to do verses? Oh, no! There is something else … but what? After all, why think? To live is to not know that one is living... Why don't I forget that I am living... to live?

Aristotle photo
Maria Shriver photo
Aristotle photo

“Friendship is essentially a partnership.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
Epicurus photo
Seneca the Younger photo
Albert Schweitzer photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Toni Morrison photo

“She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.”

Variant: She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.
Source: Beloved

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Emerson in His Journals

Dorothy Parker photo
William Hazlitt photo

“He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

No. 401
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)
Source: Selected Essays, 1778-1830

Henry Ford photo

“My best friend is one who brings out the best in me”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Actually due to Harris Weinstock: "My best friend is the man who can bring out of me my best, and your best friend is the one who tends to bring out the best in you" (May 1914) Attributed to Henry Ford as early as 1948.
Misattributed

George MacDonald photo
David Hume photo

“Truth springs from argument amongst friends.”

David Hume (1711–1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian

Misattributed

Katherine Mansfield photo

“I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

As quoted in Katherine Mansfield : A Biography (1953) by Antony Alpers, p. 266

Sarah Dessen photo

“Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Variant: This world is an awful/ugly place not to have a best friend.
Source: Someone Like You (1998)

Anaïs Nin photo
Ella Wheeler Wilcox photo

“We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Variant: We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest;
And deal full many a thoughtless blow,
To those who love us best.

Robert Southey photo
Mindy Kaling photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Friendship
Variant: The only way to have a friend is to be one.

William Blake photo

“It is easier to forgive an Enemy than to forgive a Friend.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: 1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 4, plate 91, line 1

A.A. Milne photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

March 1937
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934