
On Friendship.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Epidicus, Act I, sc. 2, line 9.
Epidicus
Context: The man that comforts a desponding friend with words alone, does nothing. He’s a friend indeed who proves himself a friend in need.
Nihil agit, qui diffidentem verbis solatus suis. Is est amicus, qui in re dubia te juvat, ubi re est opus.
On Friendship.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Prove your friend ere you have need, but in deed
A friend is never known till a man have need.”
Part I, chapter 11.
Proverbs (1546)
“He that is a friend to himself, is a friend to all mankind.”
Derived from Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium; Epistle VI of Seneca the Younger:
"I shall tell you what pleased me today in the writings of Hecato; it is these words: 'What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.' That was indeed a great benefit; such a person can never be alone. You may be sure that such a man is a friend to all mankind." ["Interim quoniam diurnam tibi mercedulam debeo, quid me hodie apud Hecatonem delectaverit dicam. 'Quaeris' inquit 'quid profecerim? amicus esse mihi coepi.' Multum profecit: numquam erit solus. Scito esse hunc amicum omnibus."]
Misattributed
“With friends like these, who needs Yemenis?”
At a summit about the civil war in Yemen, Financial Times, 19 September 2017 https://www.ft.com/content/4060a7e0-9972-11e7-a652-cde3f882dd7b
Attributed
“A friend in need is a friend to be avoided.”
Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 1
“6103. A Friend in Need
Is a Friend in Deed.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Source: It (1986), Ch. 16 : Eddie's Bad Break, §8
Context: Maybe, he thought, there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends — maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for, too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.
As quoted in "Considerations By the Way" in Conduct of Life by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Variant translation: Believe me, a thousand friends suffice thee not; In a single enemy thou hast more than enough