“I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred — that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt…. If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance, we are no true lover, no true friend.”

“We need books… because we are all, in the private kingdoms of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend.”

Steve Almond (1966) American writer

“We meet fellow humans throughout our travels,
Become close — friends, dates, lovers.
Always we are distanced again
from death, geography, or meeting others,
Only dialtone on the phone,
cold and empty beneath the covers.”

Patri Friedman (1976) American libertarian activist and theorist of political economy

“True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.”

Baltasar Gracián (1601–1658) Spanish Jesuit and baroque prose writer and philosopher

“It is when we are most lost that we sometimes find our truest friends.”

Cynthia Rylant (1954) American author of children's books and librarian

“In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.”

John Churton Collins (1848–1908) British literary critic

“You're beautiful, but you're somewhere else. That's okay. I can handle that. But we won't continue as friends, not just now. I like you as a lover, not a friend.”

Luke Davies (1962) Australian writer

“For Christ is Joy and Sweetness to a broken heart. Christ is a Lover of poor sinners, and such a Lover that He gave Himself for us. Now if this is true, and it is true, then are we never justified by our own righteousness.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

“A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least thought about acquiring.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

“The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies. We want to emigrate as respected people.”

Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) Austro-Hungarian journalist and writer