“How often a man has cause to return thanks for the enthusiasms of his friends! They are the little fountains that run down from the hills to refresh the mental desert of the despondent.”

— Henry Van Dyke

The White Blot
The Ruling Passion http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/rlpsn10.txt (1901)

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Henry Van Dyke 63

American diplomat 1852–1933

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. I; VIII
Lacon (1820)

“Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted;
If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning
Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment;
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

Part II, section 1.
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)

“How many deserters there are from the rigours of virtue, how few from the cause of love!”

Antoine François Prévost (1697–1763) French novelist

Combien trouve-t-on de déserteurs de la sévère vertu et combien en trouvez-vous peu de l'amour?
Part 1, p. 123; translation p. 64.
L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731)

“The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 185

“He who is deserted by friends and relatives will often find help and sympathy from strangers.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

“Inaction will cause a man to sink into the slough of despond and vanish without a trace.”

Farley Mowat (1921–2014) Canadian author and environmentalist

“The life of a man who deliberately runs through his fortune often becomes a business speculation; his friends, his pleasures, patrons, and acquaintances are his capital.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

La vie d'un homme occupé à manger sa fortune devient souvent une spéculation; il place ses capitaux en amis, en plaisirs, en protecteurs, en connaissances.
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part II: A Woman Without a Heart