Quotes about friendship
page 5

“Now the quietude of earth
Nestles deep my heart within;
Friendships new and strange have birth
Since I left the city's din.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Birth, Heart

“The Church offers comradeship with Jesus in all the affairs of life. It gives men a clearer understanding of the mind of Christ. It is through Christ that they come to know God. The steady discipline of intimate friendship with Jesus results in men becoming like Him.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor

Statement co-authored with Joseph Fort Newton and Charles E. Jefferson, edited by Charles Steltzle, as quoted in The American Scrap Book (1928), p. 15; also in Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches (1930), p. 85

Life, Men, God, Understanding

“Relations between India and China have been founded on solid understanding of the affinities of the cultures and the civilizations of the two countries, and the imperatives of peaceful co-existence and close co-operation between them in the post-cold war world. I believe that India-China friendship and co-operation could be a shining example of concord and harmonious relations between two ancient civilizations and the foundation for a just, stable and peaceful world order.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Press Information Bureau in: Address By His Excellency Shri K.R. Narayanan, President Of The Republic Of India At Peking University http://pib.myiris.com/speech/article.php3?fl=010508171719, press Information Bureau, 30 May 2000

War, World, Peace, Understanding

“Our country has definitely relinquished the old standard of dealing with other countries by terror and force, and is definitely committed to the new standard of dealing with them through friendship and understanding. This new policy should be constantly kept in mind by the guiding forces of the Army and Navy, by the. Congress and by the country at large. I believe it holds a promise of great benefit to humanity. I shall resist any attempt to resort to the old methods and the old standards. I am especially solicitous that foreign nations should comprehend the candor and sincerity with which we have adopted this position. While we propose to maintain defensive and supplementary police forces by land and sea, and to train them through inspections and maneuvers upon appropriate occasions in order to maintain their efficiency, I wish every other nation to understand that this does not express any unfriendliness or convey any hostile intent. I want the armed forces of America to be considered by all peoples not as enemies but as friends as the contribution which is made by this country for the maintenance of the peace and security of the world.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Hostility, People, World, Peace

“Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 99.
The Guardian (1713)

Justice

“At their ten-year high school reunion, they realized they all had something in common: crime. Cassidy covered it, Nicole investigated it, and Allison prosecuted it. At the time, Nicole was working for the Denver FBI field office, but not long afterward she was transferred to Portland. At Allison’s suggestion the three women met for dinner, and a friendship began. They had half-jokingly christened themselves the Triple Threat Club in honor of the Triple Threat Chocolate Cake they had shared that day.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 12

Women, School, Time

“Until mid 2002, I was a meat eater. I have always instinctively been opposed to cruelty to animals, as all decent and sensible people are, but didn’t know much about how food animals were raised or processed. I assumed humans had always eaten meat because it was natural for us to, and that food animals were raised on farms where they were fairly oblivious to their surroundings and only moderately inconvenienced until their swift and humane execution. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over 95% of animals raised for food are born, live, and die in horribly painful conditions. … Another misconception I had was about the relative intelligence and awareness of farm animals. Since becoming vegan, I’ve met rescued “food” animals now living natural lives outdoors … Cows, pigs and chickens are as smart, friendly and loving, as dogs and cats, and create friendships with other animals and people in much the same ways. Each has its own personality and its own set of likes and dislikes. If you think you’re an animal advocate because you care about saving dogs and cats in city shelters but still eat meat, think again.”

Dan Piraro (1958) cartoonist

"Why I’m Vegan", in his official website Bizarro.com http://bizarro.com/why-im-vegan/

Love, Pain, People, Truth

“As a young man, Valmiki searched through the world seeking open friendship and happiness and hope and finding none of these he went alone into the empty forest where no man lived, to as spot where the Tamasa River flows into Ganga. There he sat for years without moving, so still that white ants built an anthill over him. There Valmiki sat inside that anthill for thousands of years with only his eyes showing out, trying to find the True, his hands folded and his mind lost in contemplation.”

Vālmīki Ramayana

In p. 5.
Ramayana

World, Hope, Search, Happiness

“Intimate acquaintance must precede real friendship.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXIX : The Neighbour; Helen to Walter

“Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart.”
Ambitio multos mortales falsos fieri subegit, aliud clausum in pectore, aliud in lingua promptum habere, amicitias inimicitiasque non ex re, sed ex commodo aestimare, magisque vultum quam ingenium bonum habere.

Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician

Variant translation: It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.
Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter X, section 5

Heart

“…one enemy can do more hurt, than ten friends can do good.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Journal to Stella (30 June, 1711)

Hurt

“If we would reach a degree of civilization higher and grander than any yet attained, we should welcome to our ample continent all the nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples, and as fast as they learn our language and comprehend the duties of citizenship, we should incorporate them into the American body politic. The outspread wings of the American eagle are broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come. As a matter of selfish policy, leaving right and humanity out of the question, we cannot wisely pursue any other course. Other governments mainly depend for security upon the sword; ours depends mainly upon the friendship of the people. In all matters, in time of peace, in time of war, and at all times, it makes its appeal to the people, and to all classes of the people. Its strength lies in their friendship and cheerful support in every time of need, and that policy is a mad one which would reduce the number of its friends by excluding those who would come, or by alienating those who are already here.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

War, People, Peace, Question

“The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.”

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

Friendship
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Essays, First Series

“But he was a keen-eyed observer. He noticed that the Portuguese had landed artillery to protect the area in which Christians lived. On a visit to a Portuguese vessel to see Father Coelho he observed that the ship, though small, was heavily armed. He was also well aware of the interest that the western daimyos were manifesting in the arms and equipment of the Portuguese and of their attempts to strengthen themselves by friendship with the foreigners. Hideyoshi acted with firmness and in 1587 the activities of the missionaries were prohibited throughout the length and breadth of Japan.”

K. M. Panikkar (1895–1963) Indian diplomat, academic and historian

Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945

“If you have a grateful heart (which is a miracle amongst you statesmen), show it by directing the bearer to the best wine in town, and pray let not this highest point of sacred friendship be performed slightly, but go about it with all due deliberation and care, as holy priests to sacrifice, or as discreet thieves to the wary performance of burglary and shop-lifting. Let your well-discerning palate (the best judge about you) travel from cellar to cellar and then from piece to piece till it has lighted on wine fit for its noble choice and my approbation.”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) English poet, and peer of the realm

Letter to the diplomat Henry Savile (1673-1674).
Other

Travel, Light, Wine, Heart

“I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.”

George III of the United Kingdom (1738–1820) King of Great Britain and King of Ireland

Source: To John Adams, as quoted in Adams, C.F. (editor) (1850–56), The works of John Adams, second president of the United States, vol. VIII, pp. 255–257, quoted in Ayling, p. 323 and Hibbert, p. 165.

“How beautiful life is! Music and dancing! The violins are sobbing. The first stopper of a bottle of champagne bangs. And now there's a mad singing and shouting. Everybody joins in and sings and shouts! Embracing, friendship, eternal friendship! How beautiful the women are! Dressed in black and red. But you are the prettiest, Hertha! … Hey, you grumblers, go to hell! Music and dancing. The violins are sobbing. Women dressed in black and red. But you are the prettiest, Hertha!”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Wie schön ist das Leben! Musik und Tanz! Die Geigen schluchzen. Der erste Sektpfropfen knallt. Und nun ein tolles Singen und Schreien. Man singt und schreit mit. Umarmung, Freundschaft, ewige Freundschaft! Welch' schöne Frauen! In schwarz und rot! Und doch bist Du die Schönste, Hertha Holk! … Heda, ihr Miesmacher, der Teufel soll euch holen! Musik und Tanz. Die Geigen schluchzen. Frauen in schwarz und rot. Und doch bist Du die Schönste, Hertha Holk!
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Life, Women, Beauty, Music

“Oh I detest him. I did then, I do now, and it's mutual. He hates me as well. And I'd much prefer to have his savage hatred than even the merest hint of friendship from that man.”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Comments on Arthur Scargill, leader of the National Union of Mineworkers during the 1984-1985 strike. BBC Press Office - Kinnock detests Scargill http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/02_february/27/coal_war.shtml (27 February 2004).

Hate

“2446. The Word Friend is a common Name, and appropriated by most People; but believe me, thou wilt scarce ever find a Man that gives solid Proof of a true, unfeigned, and uninterested Friendship.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

People

“Conformity to the world has in all ages proved the ruin of the church. It is utterly impossible to live in nearness to God, and in friendship with the world.”

Rowland Hill (preacher) (1744–1833) British preacher

P. 621.

God, Age, World

“So far as it depends on the course of this government, our relations of good will and friendship will be sedulously cultivated with all nations.”

John Tyler (1790–1862) American politician, 10th President of the United States (in office from 1841 to 1845)

First annual message to Congress (1 June 1841).

Dependency

“Every Conservative desires peace. The threat to peace comes from Communism, which has powerful forces ready to attack anywhere. Communism waits for weakness, it leaves strength alone. Britain therefore must be strong, strong in arms, and strong in faith in her own way of life. The greatest hope for peace lies in friendship and co-operation with the United States of America.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

1951 General Election Address (8 October 1951) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/100912 1950s

Life, Peace, Faith, Hope

“No wearisome days, no sorrowful nights; no hunger or thirst; no anxiety or fears; no envies, no jealousies, no breaches of friendship, no sad separations, no distrusts or forebodings, no self-reproaches, no enmities, no bitter regrets, no tears, no heartaches; "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."”

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 300.

Death, Hunger, Pain, Sadness

“What renders man an imaginative and moral being is that in society he gives new aims to his life which could not have existed in solitude: the aims of friendship, religion, science, and art.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Source: The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. II, Reason in Society, Ch. V: Democracy

Life, Religion, Art, Imagination

“But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Friendship
Essays (1625)

World, Nature, Sense, Solitude

“People who are having a love-sex relationship are continuously lying to each other because the very nature of the relationship demands that they do, because you have to make a love object of this person, which means that you editorialize about them. You know? You cut out what you don't want to see, you add this if it isn't there. And so therefore you're building a lie. But in a friendship you don't do that. You do exactly the reverse. You try more and more to be as completely pure and straight as you can be.”

Truman Capote (1924–1984) American author

From a 1970 interview
Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)

Love, People, Lie, Sex

“Although the troops have struck us, we throw it all behind and are glad to meet you in peace and friendship.”

Black Kettle (1803–1868) Leader of the Southern Cheyenne

Source: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), p. 101

Peace

“I have long enjoyed the friendship and companionship of Republicans, because I am by instinct a teacher and I would like to teach them something.”

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

Speech to the World's Salesmanship Congress (10 July 1916)
1910s

Teachers

“I don't want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Edward Snowden: 'The US government will say I aided our enemies' – video interview http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jul/08/edward-snowden-video-interview, published by The Guardian on 8 July 2013. Interview with Glenn Greenwald, 6 June 2013, Part 2

Love, World

“In this uncertain space between birth and death, especially here at the end of the world in Moonlight Bay, we need hope as surely as we need food and water, love and friendship. The trick, however, is to remember that hope is a perilous thing, that it's not a steel and concrete bridge across the void between this moment and a brighter future. Hope is no stronger than tremulous beads of dew strung on a filament of spider web, and it alone can't long support the terrible weight of an anguished mind and a tortured heart.”

Dean Koontz book Seize the Night

Source: Seize the Night (1999), Chapter 4; musings of Christopher Snow

Love, Death, World, Food

“My fair one, let us swear
An eternal friendship.”

Molière (1622–1673) French playwright and actor

Act IV, sc. i
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670)

“I had eventually come to understand that friendship was a delicate, gradual process that mustn't be rushed or seized upon but allowed and encouraged to take its course over time. I pictured it as a butterfly, simultaneously beautiful and fragile, that once afloat belonged to the air and any attempt to grab at it would only destroy it.”

Daniel Tammet book Born on a Blue Day

Source: Born on a Blue Day (2006), Chapter 8: Falling in Love.

Beauty, Understanding, Time

“Usually marriages break up because people won't take the trouble to get through the middle breakfasts. It's no trick to get through the first breakfasts, when love is new and there are bows on the eggs. And once the middle breakfasts are over the last breakfasts, when plenty of allowances have been made on both sides and an understanding friendship and deep love have been established, are a joy forever.”

Irene Dunne (1898–1990) American actress

To Make You Hapier, by Roberta Orminston http://www.irenedunnesite.com/press/photoplay-april-1944/ Photoplay (April 1944).

Love, Marriage, People, Understanding

“The message of India to our neighbourhood and to the rest of the world has been and will be peace, friendship and cooperation. Our commitment from time immemorial has been:
May All secure happiness
May all enjoy good health
May all experiences goodness around them
Let none be in pain or sorrow.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, P.247

Pain, Health, World, Peace

“Kandinsky was an optimist; he had been interested, at first, in fairy tales and legends and chivalrous themes of the past, but he then became increasingly interested, after 1908, in formulating what he called the art of the future rather than indulging in romantic visions of the past. Kubin, on the other hand was a pessimist, always haunted by the past and suspicious of the future. This basic difference in their temperaments made their discussions all the more fruitful, and their friendship was the more intense.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), p. 118

Art, Past, Future

“In order to win this war, we need to understand that the terrorists and extremists are opportunists. They will grab onto any cause to incite hatred and to justify the killing of innocent men, women and children. If we weren't in Iraq, they would be using our relationship and friendship with Israel as a reason to recruit, or the Crusades, or cartoons as a reason to commit murder. They recruit based upon lies and excuses. And they murder because of their raw desire for power. They hope to impose their dominion over the broader Middle East and establish a radical Islamic empire where millions are ruled according to their hateful ideology. We know this because al-Qaeda has told us. The terrorist Zawahiri, number two man in the al-Qaeda team, al-Qaeda network, he said, we'll proceed with several incremental goals. The first stage is to expel the Americans from Iraq; the second stage is to establish an Islamic authority, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of caliphate; the third stage, extend the jihad wave to secular countries neighboring Iraq; and the fourth stage, the clash with Israel. This is the words of the enemy. The President of the United States and the Congress must listen carefully to what the enemy says in order to be able to protect you. It makes sense for us to take their words seriously if our most important job is the security of the United States. Mister Zawahiri has laid out their plan. That's why they attacked us on September the 11th. That's why they fight us in Iraq today. And that is why they must be defeated.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

As quoted in "FLASHBACK 2006: Media Elites Slam Bush For Predicting Rise Of Islamic Caliphate In Iraq" http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/24/flashback-2006-media-elites-slam-bush-for-predicting-rise-of-islamic-caliphate-in-iraq/ (24 May 2016), The Daily Caller 2000s, 2006, Remarks at Bob Riley for Governor Luncheon (2006)

Women, Men, Hate, War

“We want to be good, but it’s difficult to know a safe place to start. We want to reach out our hand in friendship, but we don’t want it bitten off.”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

All shall be well (2014)

“The lack of individual prayer and communion with God has divorced modern Christians and Christian sects from Jesus' teaching of the real perception of God, as is true also of all religious paths inaugurated by God-sent prophets whose followers drift into byways of dogma and ritual rather than actual God-communion. Those paths that have no esoteric soul-lifting training busy themselves with dogma and building walls to exclude people with different ideas. Divine persons who really perceive God include everybody within the path of their love, not in the concept of an eclectic congregation but in respectful divine friendship toward all true lovers of God and the saints of all religions.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, (2004) by Yogananda

Love, God, People, Religion

“How wonderful it can be, and what nobility it proves in young men, when they pledge one another a friendship that can never be shadowed by selfishness, envy, or jealousy.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

little Steina
Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed) (1960)

Selfishness, Jealousy, Men, Envy

“A sudden thought strikes me,—let us swear an eternal friendship.”

John Hookham Frere (1769–1846) British politician

The Rovers, Act i, Sc. 1, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Let us embrace, and from this very moment vow an eternal misery together", Thomas Otway, The Orphan, Act iv., Sc. 2.; "My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship", Jean Baptiste Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (published c. 1871), act iv. sc. 1.

“The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other's dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him.”

Cyril Connolly book The Unquiet Grave

Part I: Ecce Gubernator (p. 17)
The Unquiet Grave (1944)

“Hayek truly did get Popper his position at the London School of Economics. “I am personally anxious to get Dr. Popper to this School,” Hayek wrote Gombrich as early as 1943. Given the later prominence that Popper achieved for the school, this was one of Hayek’s most significant contributions to its reputation, as well as the decisive career move in Popper’s life.
Hayek also genuinely influenced Popper’s political philosophy. While Popper always remained to Hayek’s left, he started out much further to Hayek’s left than he wound up, and this movement was in no small part the result of Hayek’s influence. Popper was a charter member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He suggested, however, that socialists be brought into it. Hayek wrote Popper several deeply personal letters in connection with his divorce. It is likely that their personal relationship was more important to and valued by Hayek than Popper, though Popper valued highly Hayek’s friendship.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Life, School, Decision, Parting

“You'll never make the friendship of nature until you can approach her with the idea of learning all that she has, all that she is, all that she serves from the inner worlds outwards to this physical vestment. The more wildflowers you learn the names of the richer you are. The more birds you can identify the finer character you possess and the more you can love as well as appreciate and seek to protect beauty in every form, the higher and nobler becomes your character. For nature teaches your character to expand and it reaches out to your very soul to make it as pure as it is.”

Flower A. Newhouse (1909–1994) American mystic

Lecture June 8, 1958 Nature's Portals of Instruction
Nature

Love, World, Beauty, Soul

“Never indulge in people who follow a negative path because they will take you with them on the road of ruin. Show them the way to positivism even if there's a risk of losing their friendship.”

Siddharth Katragadda (1972) Indian writer

page 55
Dark Rooms (2002)

People, Way

“Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1781, p. 479
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

Love, Pain

“Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

"Epitaph on the Hon. S. Harcourt" (1720).

Joy

“Our village was clearly no pagan paradise, neither were we conscious of showing tolerance. It was just the way of it. We certainly committed our share of statutory crime. Manslaughter, arson, robbery, rape cropped up regularly throughout the years. Quiet incest flourished where the roads were bad; some found their comfort in beasts; and there were the usual friendships between men and boys who walked the fields like lovers.”

Laurie Lee book Cider with Rosie

Source: Cider with Rosie (1959), pp. 249-250.

Men, Way, Boy, Lovers

“Kipps was unprepared for the unpleasant truth; that the path of social advancement is and must be strewn with broken friendships.”

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English writer

Kipps the Story of a Simple Soul (1905) Bk. 2, ch. 5

Truth

“A Platonic friendship is perhaps only possible when one or other of the Platonists is in love with a third person.”

Evelyn Beatrice Hall book The Friends of Voltaire

Source: The Friends of Voltaire (1906), Ch. 3 : Galiani : The Wit, p. 79

Love, Personality

“A friendship that can be ended / didn't ever start”

Mellin de Saint-Gelais (1495–1558) French poet

Original: Amitié qui se peut finir / Ne fut jamais bien commencée
Source: Oeuvres poétiques

“Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweetener of life! and solder of society!”

Robert Blair The Grave

Part I, line 88.
The Grave (1743)

For Friend, Life, Soul

“Is it the being tied to One that offends us? Why this ought rather to recommend it to us, and would really do so, were we guided by reason, and not by humor and brutish passion. He who does not make friendship the chief inducement of his choice, and prefer it before any other consideration does not deserve a good wife, and therefore should not complain if he goes without one…
The Christian institution of marriage provides the best that may be for domestic quiet and content, and for the education of children.”

Mary Astell (1666–1731) English feminist writer

As quoted in Women's Political & Social Thought: An Anthology, p. 112. Editors Hilda L. Smith, Berenice A. Carroll. Editorial Indiana University Press, 2000. ISBN 0253337585.

Marriage, Children, Education, Passion

“Disinterestedness is a necessary attribute to real friendship and it is the duty of one friend to guess another's problems and render assistance before it is asked. If our friends have needs that we can satisfy, we should relieve them of the necessity of seeking our help. Apart from the satisfaction usually produced by an action, this permanent ability to give pleasure is perhaps the only advantage of wealth and power.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

Pleasure, Problem, Help, Wealth

“Is aught so fair
In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
In the bright eye of Hesper or the morn,
In nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship? as the candid blush
Of him who strives with fortune to be just?
The graceful tear that streams for others' woes?
Or the mild majesty of private life,
Where peace with ever blooming olive crowns
The gate; where Honour's liberal hands effuse
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings
Of Innocence and Love protect the scene?”

Mark Akenside book The Pleasures of the Imagination

Book I, line 500–511
The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744)

Love, Life, Peace, Spring

“The restless dust of Los Angeles fevered him. He was a greater wanderer than myself, and all day long he sought out perverse loves in the parks. But he was so ugly he never found his desire, and the warm nights with low stars and yellow moon tortured him away from his room until the dawn arrived…Some day he would leave this hated city, some day he would go back where friendship meant something, and sure enough, he went away and I got a postcard signed "Memphis Kid" from Fort Worth, Texas.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Love, Hate, Angels, Star

“A service without flowers, the king without a horse and friendship with one who does not know the language are a waste.”

Sarvajna Kannada poet, pragmatist and philosopher

Tripadis

Flowers, Horse

“Grey was the very type of the old whig nobleman, punctiliously honourable and high-minded, and devoted to the constitution and to popular liberty as he understood them. At the same time his views were narrow, he was personally diffident and timorous in reform, and even less democratic than many of his opponents. (For his general opinions and comments on passing events see LE STRANGE'S Correspondence of Princess Lieven and Earl Grey, 1824–34, London, 1890, a collection of his letters to the wife of the Russian ambassador, with whom he maintained a most intimate friendship.) At the time when, after his long exclusion from office, he became prime minister, he had outlived the power of feeling or inspiring enthusiasm; but it was perhaps fortunate that at a moment of so much popular excitement the ministry was led by so cold a man. He was a great orator and a great debater, and, like all great orators, was very nervous just before rising to deliver his greatest speeches. He was exceedingly ready in apprehending complicated statements of fact, and in bringing them home to his hearers.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

J. A. Hamilton, 'Grey, Charles, second Earl Grey, Viscount Howick, and Baron Grey (1764–1845)', Dictionary of National Biography (1890).
About

Feeling, Home, Time, Personality

“I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship;
friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

I Am a Rock
Song lyrics, Sounds of Silence (1966)

Love, Pain, Laughter

“"I am not showing up for work, but they are not paying me. The friendship goes on…"”

Romário (1966) Brazilian association football player

Não estou indo para o trabalho, mas eles também não estão me pagando. E a amizade continua...
Source: "O Dia" newspaper.
Context: Referring to his situation at Vasco da Gama days before he retired.

“Friendship needs no words — it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

Variant translation: Friendship needs no words — it is a loneliness relieved of the anguish of loneliness.
Markings (1964)

Solitude, Loneliness

“Over the years, it has slowly dawned on me that the people who cause my painful experiences are ignorant and crude. They are the critics who have not read enough and the clients who do not know why they have come to us. I have been helped to realise this by noticing that the scholars whose work we most respect, the clients whose projects intrigue us, and the patrons whose friendship inspires us, have no problem understanding my role. They are the sophisticates. Partly through them I gain heart and realise that, over the last twenty years, I have managed to do my work and, despite some sliding, to achieve my own self-respect.”

Denise Scott Brown (1931) American architect

"Sexism and the star system in architecture"

Pain, People, Understanding, Problem

“Although we will not deviate from our stated position that Gibraltar will never be Spanish, we reach out our hand in friendship and reiterate equally forcefully our desire to have a strong and positive relationship of cooperation with our Spanish neighbours.”

Fabian Picardo (1972) Gibraltarian politician and barrister

[12 June 2018, Chief Minister's Address To United Nations Committee Of 24, http://vox.gi/cms/local/11516-chief-minister-s-address-to-un-committee-of-24.html, VOX Gibraltar News, 21 June 2018]
2018

Strong

“Anacharsis coming to Athens, knocked at Solon's door, and told him that he, being a stranger, was come to be his guest, and contract a friendship with him; and Solon replying, "It is better to make friends at home," Anacharsis replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship with me."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Solon
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Home

“HAST thou a Friend, as heart may wish at will?
Then use him so, to have his friendship still.
Would'st have a Friend, would'st know what friend is best?
Have God thy friend who passeth all the rest.”

Thomas Tusser (1524–1580) English poet

Posies for a Parlour, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

God, Heart

“At the times in my life when I was feeling the most gregarious and looking for bosom friendships, I couldn't find any takers so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the most like not being alone. The moment I decided I'd rather be alone and not have anyone telling me their problems, everybody I'd never even seen before in my life started running after me to tell me things I'd just decided I didn't think it was a good idea to hear about. As soon as I became a loner in my own mind, that's when I got what you might call a "following."”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

As soon as you stop wanting something you get it. I've found that to be absolutely axiomatic.
Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 1: Puberty

Life, Feeling, Idea, Problem

“For real company and friendship, there is nothing outside of the animal kingdom that is comparable to a river.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Little Rivers Little Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/ltrvs10.txt (1895)

Animals

“An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!”

James Thomson (poet) The Seasons

Source: The Seasons (1726-1730), Spring (1728), l. 1158-1161.

Life, Books

“Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

" On the Spirit of Obligations http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/SpiritObligations.htm" (1824) The Plain Speaker (1826)

“I consider myself to be a true friend of the Israeli people. But I define friendship as someone who takes care of a friend, who just doesn't use or exploit a friend. And, you know, there's that old adage: 'Friends don't let friends drive drunk.”

Scott Ritter (1961) American weapons inspector and writer

Speech at New York Ethical Culture Society, 2006 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/21/143259 2006

People

“Friends — They are like air bubbles on water, hastening to flow together. History tells of Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, but why should not we put to shame those old reserved worthies by a community of such? Constantly, as it were through a remote skylight, I have glimpses of a serene friendship-land, and know the better why brooks murmur and violets grow. This conjunction of souls, like waves which met and break, subsides also backward over things, and gives all a fresh aspect. I would live henceforth with some gentle soul such a life as may be conceived, double for variety, single for harmony — two, only that we might admire at our oneness — one, because indivisible. Such community to be a pledge of holy living. How could aught unworthy be admitted into our society? To listen with one ear to each summer sound, to behold with one eye each summer scene, our visual rays so to meet and mingle with the object as to be one bent and doubled; with two tongues to be wearied, and thought to spring ceaselessly from a double fountain.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

January 26, 1840
Journals (1838-1859)

Life, Soul, History, Spring

“With the opportunity to observe the problems of the President at closer range, I have come to understand the importance of an intimate, easy relationship, born of friendship and mutual regard, between the President and the Chiefs. It is particularly important in the case of the Chairman, who works more closely with the President and Secretary of Defense than do the service chiefs. The Chairman should be a true believer in the foreign policy and military strategy of the administration he serves, or, at least, feel that he and his colleagues are assured an attentive hearing those matters for which the Joint Chiefs have a responsibility. These considerations have led me to conclude that an incoming President is well advised to change the Chiefs, not with one sweep of the new broom, but progressively as he gets a chance to know the senior officers qualified for consideration and to evaluate their compatibility with his ways of thinking and acting.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 252

Way, Feeling, Understanding, Problem

“Fortunately analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist… The therapy effected by life itself is not, however, within one's control. Neither hardships nor friendships nor religious experience can be arranged to meet the needs of the particular individual. Life as a therapist is ruthless; circumstances that are helpful to one neurotic may entirely crush another.”

Karen Horney (1885–1952) American-German psychoanalyst

Karen Horney Our Inner Conflicts (1945)

Life, Way, Help

“Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I shd. say, 'sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

Letter to Arthur Greeves (29 December 1935) — in They Stand Together: The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914–1963) (1979), p. 477

Life, Thinking, Happiness

“Our Fiji today is a new Fiji where individual freedom is protected and not a Fiji solely for Fijians. Wise decisions from this august house will promote multiracial harmony and true friendship.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

2000, Excerpts from an address to Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs, 28 July 2005

Decision, Freedom, Housing

“Any person and any element who harms the friendship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union will be considered the enemy of the country, enemy of our people and enemy of our revolution. We will not allow anybody in Afghanistan to act against the friendship of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.”

Hafizullah Amin (1929–1979) politician, former Afghan head of state (1979)

As quoted in Beverley Male (1982) Revolutionary Afghanistan: A Reappraisal, page 183

People, Personality, Country

“We ought to cherish the body. Our body's substance is not from an evil principle, as the Manicheans imagine, but from God. And therefore, we ought to cherish the body by the friendship of love, by which we love God.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

II–II, q. 25, art. 5
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

Love, God, Imagination, Evil

“Look under the “Love and Friendship” section and see dozens of cards designed for women to send to women, most bashing men, and virtually none saying anything loving about men.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

Love, Women, Men

“Friendship is the positive and unalterable choice of a person whom we have singled out for qualities that we most admire.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

Personality

“Feebleness of confidence in the power of international goodwill operating through appropriate agencies of international justice and friendship is at present paralyzing efforts to take the steps which must be taken if war is to be averted.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Now is the Time to Prevent a Third World War (1950)

War, Justice, Confidence, Effort

“You cannot expect English people to be attracted by the brutal intolerances of Nazidom. … We certainly do not wish to pursue a policy inimical to the legitimate interests of Germany, but you must surely be aware that when the German Government speaks of friendship with England, what they mean is that we shall give them back their former Colonies, and also agree to their having a free hand so far as we are concerned in Central and Southern Europe. This means that they would devour Austria and Czecho-Slovakia as a preliminary to making a gigantic middle Europe-block. It would certainly not be in our interests to connive at such policies of aggression.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Lord Londonderry (23 October 1937), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 873
The 1930s

People

“The pleasures of friendship, of unreserved conversation, of similarity of taste and opinions will make good amends for orange wine.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter to Cassandra (1808-06-20) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Pleasure, Wine

“Mister President and Madam first lady, distinguished guests, and residents of Goree Island, citizens of Senegal, I'm honored to begin my visit to Africa in your beautiful country. For hundreds of years on this island, peoples of different continents met in fear and cruelty. Today, we gather in respect and friendship, mindful of past wrongs and dedicated to the advance of human liberty.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Hope and Conscience Will Not Be Silenced (July 2003)

People, Fear, Beauty, Past

“The enlightenment idea of privacy is breaking apart under the strain of new technologies, social tools and the emergence of the database state. We cannot hold back the tide, but we can use it as an opportunity to rethink what we understand by 'personality', how we engage and interact with others and where the boundaries can be put between the public and private. Those of us who are ahead of the curve when it comes to the adoption and use of technologies that undermine the old model of privacy have much to teach those who will come after us, and can offer advice and support to those who might be unhappy to have their movements, eating habits, friendships and patterns of media consumption made available to all. But every Twitterer, Tumblr, Dopplr or Brightkite user at Lift is sharing more data with more people than even the FBI under Hoover or the Stasi at the height of its powers could have dreamed of. And we do so willingly, hoping to benefit in unquantifiable ways from this unwarranted - in all senses - disclosure. I'll argue that we are in the vanguard of creating not just new forms of social organisation but new ways of being human.”

Bill Thompson (1960) English technology writer, born 1960

" The Death of Privacy and Why We Should Welcome It http://liftconference.com/death-privacy-and-why-we-should-welcome-it," January 18, 2009. (Remarks made during the Lift Conference)

People, Dreams, Hope, Way

“When the members of any nation have come to regard their country as nothing more than the plot of ground on which they reside, and their government as a mere organization for providing police or contracting treaties; when they have ceased to entertain any warmer feelings for one another than those which interest or personal friendship or a mere general philanthropy may produce, the moral dissolution of that nation is at hand.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Campaign speech for 1940 presidential candidate Wendell Willkie (September 27, 1940)

Feeling, Personality, Country

“Richard Chase declares, "No great poet has written so much bad verse as Emily Dickinson." He blames the Victorian cult of little women for the fact that "two thirds of her work" is seriously flawed: "Her coy and oddly childish poems of nature and female friendship are products of a time when one of the careers open to women was perpetual childhood." Dickinson's sentimental feminine poems remain neglected by embarrassed scholars. I would maintain, however, that her poetry is a closed system of sexual reference and that the mawkish poems are designed to dovetail with those of violence and suffering.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 637

Women, Nature, Suffering, Time

“We always lose the friendship of those who lose our esteem.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“President Roosevelt and President Truman and President Eisenhower had the same experience, they all made the effort to get along with the Russians. But every time, finally it failed. And the reason it failed was because the Communists are determined to destroy us, and regardless of what hand of friendship we may hold out or what arguments we may put up, the only thing that will make that decisive difference is the strength of the United States.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Speech at Democratic Rally, George Washington High School Stadium, Alexandria, Virginia (24 August 1960) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=74188 1960

Decision, Effort, Time

“Interviewer says "How do you become a member of the World/Inferno Friendship Society?"”

Jack Terricloth (1970)

Interviews

World

“Joseph Knecht had often noticed that many schoolmates his own age, but even more the younger boys, liked him, sought his friendship, and moreover tended to let him dominate them. They asked him for advice, put themselves under his influence. Ever since, this experience had been repeated frequently. It had its pleasant and flattering side; it satisfied ambition and strengthened self-confidence. But it also had another, a dark and terrifying side. For there was something bad and unpalatable about the attitude one took toward these schoolmates so eager for advice, guidance, and an example, about the impulse to despise them for their lack of self-reliance and dignity, and about the occasional secret temptation to make them (at least in thought) into obedient slaves.”

Hermann Hesse book The Glass Bead Game

The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Secret, Age, Confidence, Boy

“Instead of combating my slight prejudice against you as uncharitable, I mean to cherish it, until I am convinced that I have no reason to distrust this kind, insinuating friendship you are so anxious to push upon me.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXIX : The Neighbour; Helen to Walter

“No man under Heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace — they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters' friendship — they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel.”

Wilkie Collins book The Law and the Lady

Vol. I [Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1860] ( p. 194 https://books.google.com/books?id=wUN2KP79lhUC&pg=PA194) Also in The Cambridge Companion to Sensation Fiction edited by Andrew Mangham [Cambridge University Press, 2013, ISBN 1-107-51169-0] ( p. 82 https://books.google.com/books?id=rQZCAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA82) The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins by Catherine Peters [Princeton University Press, 2014, ISBN 1-400-86345-7] ( p. 224 https://books.google.com/books?id=T0AABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA224) Cemetery of the Murdered Daughters: Feminism, History, and Ingeborg Bachmann by Sara Lennox [University of Massachusetts Press, 2006, ISBN 1-558-49552-5] ( p. 227 https://books.google.com/books?id=_9VjDtk5ss4C&pg=PA227) The Law and the Lady (1875)

Love, Women, Men, Peace

“They tell us it will be about “emotions” and “friendship,” that it will be a night of joy. Who are they kidding?”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Happiness Can’t Be Faked, 2008

Joy, Night

“He had gone to several universities... and had found only curves and credits. He had become drunk on the idea of God and found only theology. He had risen several times on the subtle and powerful wings of lust, expectant of magnificence, achieving only discharge. A few times he had extended friendship with palpitating hope, only to find that no one quite knew what he had in mind. His solitude now was the result of his metabolism, that constant breathing in of joy and exhalation of sadness.”

Edward Lewis Wallant book The Tenants of Moonbloom

The Tenants of Moonbloom (1962)

God, Sadness, Hope, Idea

“She often wondered indeed if she ever had been, or ever could be, intimate with anyone. She had an ideal of friendship as well as of several other sentiments, which it failed to seem to her in this case – it had not seemed to her in other cases – that the actual completely expressed.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Ch. XIX.

“Every social need, such as the need for friendship, must be a party to its own satisfaction: I cannot passively find my friend as a ready-made friend; a ready-made human being he may be, but his friendship for me I must help to create by my own active resolve.”

William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher

Source: The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Ch. XII : The Will as a Maker of Truth, p. 140.

Help

“The endearing elegance of female friendship.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 46

“Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.”

Benjamin Franklin book Poor Richard's Almanack

Poor Richard's Almanack (1756); this has also been quoted in a paraphrased form used by Bill Clinton in [ 1998 address to Beijing University http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/122320.stm, as "Our critics are our friends, they show us our faults". Poor Richard's Almanack

Love