Quotes about friendship
page 9

Mary Wollstonecraft photo

“Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose.”

Letter 12
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
Context: Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose. Besides, few like to be seen as they really are; and a degree of simplicity, and of undisguised confidence, which, to uninterested observers, would almost border on weakness, is the charm, nay the essence of love or friendship, all the bewitching graces of childhood again appearing.

Joseph Addison photo

“Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood
Of mounting spirits, and fermenting blood:
Lodged in the soul, with virtue overruled,
Inflamed by reason, and by reason cooled,
In hours of peace content to be unknown.
And only in the field of battle shown:
To souls like these, in mutual friendship joined,
Heaven dares intrust the cause of humankind.”

Source: The Campaign (1704), Line 101.
Context: Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn;
A sudden friendship, while with stretched-out rays
They meet each other, mingling blaze with blaze.
Polished in courts, and hardened in the field,
Renowned for conquest, and in council skilled,
Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood
Of mounting spirits, and fermenting blood:
Lodged in the soul, with virtue overruled,
Inflamed by reason, and by reason cooled,
In hours of peace content to be unknown.
And only in the field of battle shown:
To souls like these, in mutual friendship joined,
Heaven dares intrust the cause of humankind.

Ulysses S. Grant photo

“Our liberties remain unimpaired; the bondmen have been freed from slavery; we have become possessed of the respect, if not the friendship, of all civilized nations.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Seventh State of the Union Address (1875)
Context: Our liberties remain unimpaired; the bondmen have been freed from slavery; we have become possessed of the respect, if not the friendship, of all civilized nations. Our progress has been great in all the arts—in science, agriculture, commerce, navigation, mining, mechanics, law, medicine, etc.; and in general education the progress is likewise encouraging. Our thirteen States have become thirty-eight, including Colorado (which has taken the initiatory steps to become a State), and eight Territories, including the Indian Territory and Alaska, and excluding Colorado, making a territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. On the south we have extended to the Gulf of Mexico, and in the west from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

William Penn photo

“This is the Comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to Die, yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense, ever present, because Immortal.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

127 - 134
Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part II
Context: They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill, what never dies. Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their Friendship. If Absence be not death, neither is theirs. Death is but Crossing the World, as Friends do the Seas; They live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is Omnipresent. In this Divine Glass, they see Face to Face; and their Converse is Free, as well as Pure. This is the Comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to Die, yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense, ever present, because Immortal.

Ivan Illich photo

“Here is the right word. Hospitality was a condition consequent on a good society in politics, politaea, and by now might be the starting point of politaea, of politics. But this is difficult because hospitality requires a threshold over which I can lead you — and TV, internet, newspaper, the idea of communication, abolished the walls and therefore also the friendship, the possibility of leading somebody over the door.”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

We the People interview (1996)
Context: Here is the right word. Hospitality was a condition consequent on a good society in politics, politaea, and by now might be the starting point of politaea, of politics. But this is difficult because hospitality requires a threshold over which I can lead you — and TV, internet, newspaper, the idea of communication, abolished the walls and therefore also the friendship, the possibility of leading somebody over the door. Hospitality requires a table around which you can sit and if people get tired they can sleep. You have to belong to a subculture to say, we have a few mattresses here. It's still considered highly improper to conceive of this as the ideal moments in a day or a year. Hospitality is deeply threatened by the idea of personality, of scholastic status. I do think that if I had to choose one word to which hope can be tied it is hospitality. A practice of hospitality— recovering threshold, table, patience, listening, and from there generating seedbeds for virtue and friendship on the one hand — on the other hand radiating out for possible community, for rebirth of community.

Ivan Illich photo

“The impending loss of spirit, of soul, of what I call atmosphere, could go unnoticed.
Only persons who face one another in trust can allow its emergence. The bouquet of friendship varies with each breath, but when it is there it needs no name. For a long time I believed that there was no one noun for it, and no verb for its creation.”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

The Cultivation of Conspiracy (1998)
Context: The impending loss of spirit, of soul, of what I call atmosphere, could go unnoticed.
Only persons who face one another in trust can allow its emergence. The bouquet of friendship varies with each breath, but when it is there it needs no name. For a long time I believed that there was no one noun for it, and no verb for its creation. Each time I tried one, I was discouraged; all the synonyms for it were shanghaied by its synthetic counterfeits: mass-produced fashions and cleverly marketed moods, chic feelings, swank highs and trendy tastes. Starting in the seventies, group dynamics retreats and psychic training, all to generate "atmosphere," became major businesses. Discreet silence about the issue I am raising seemed preferable to creating a misunderstanding.
Then… I suddenly realized that there is indeed a very simple word that says what I cherished and tried to nourish, and that word is peace. Peace, however, not in any of the many ways its cognates are used all over the world, but peace in its post-classical, European meaning. Peace, in this sense, is the one strong word with which the atmosphere of friendship created among equals has been appropriately named. But to embrace this, one has to come to understand the origin of this peace in the conspirator, a curious ritual behavior almost forgotten today.

Alan Watts photo
Sophocles photo
Simone Weil photo

“Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed, not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue).”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Love (1947), p. 274
Context: To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice. Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed, not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue).

“Fortunately, there seem to be few of his kind, and my subsequent friendships with university professors have proved exciting, stimulating and fun.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Education of a Wandering Man (1989), Ch. 11
Context: Once, when hitchhiking, I was picked up by a professor from some small college. He noticed a book in my coat pocket, and was curious. It was a Modern Library edition, in the limp bindings they used to have, which sold at the time for 95 cents. This one contained Nietzsche‎‎'s Ecce Homo, and The Birth of Tragedy.
The professor was a pedantic man of limited imagination and seemed almost offended that I was reading such a book. Obviously I did not fit some category in which he decided I belonged, and when he dropped me off in town, I suspect he was relived to be rid of me.
He kept asking me why I wanted to read such a book. At first, he doubted I was reading it. Where had I heard of Nietzsche‎‎?
When I told him I thought it was in the preface to a book on Schopenhauer, he was even more disturbed and probably believed I was lying. Fortunately, there seem to be few of his kind, and my subsequent friendships with university professors have proved exciting, stimulating and fun.

Michel De Montaigne photo
William Penn photo

“I have great love and regard toward you, and I desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind just, and peaceable life; and the people I send are of the same mind, and shall in all things behave themselves accordingly.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

Letter to the Lenape Nation (18 October 1681); as published in William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania 1680 - 1684: A Documentary History, (1983) edited by Jean R. Soderlund, University of Pennsylvania Press
Context: There is one great God and power that has made the world and all things therein, to whom you and I and all people owe their being and well-being, and to whom you and I must one day give an account for all that we do in this world. This great God has written his law in our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to love and help and do good to one another, and not to do harm and mischief one unto another. Now this great God has been pleased to make me concerned in your parts of the world, and the king of the country where I live has given unto me a great province therein, but I desire to enjoy it with your friends, else what would the great God say to us, who has made us not to devour and destroy one another, but live soberly and kindly together in the world.
Now I would have you well observe, that I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice that has been too much exercised towards you by the people of these parts of the world, who have sought themselves, and to make great advantages by you, rather than be examples of justice and goodness unto you; which I hear has been matter of trouble to you and caused great grudgings and animosities, sometimes to the shedding of blood, which has made the great god angry. But I am not such man as is well known in my own country. I have great love and regard toward you, and I desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind just, and peaceable life; and the people I send are of the same mind, and shall in all things behave themselves accordingly.

Sharon Tate photo

“I guess you could say that I was somewhat withdrawn from my classmates. I spent a good deal of time being a loner. I suppose that had something to do with the way we lived — always on the move, never living in one town very long. It's very hard to make lasting friendships that way.”

Sharon Tate (1943–1969) actress, victim of murder by Charles Manson followers

As quoted in Screen Stories magazine (1967)
Context: I guess you could say that I was somewhat withdrawn from my classmates. I spent a good deal of time being a loner. I suppose that had something to do with the way we lived — always on the move, never living in one town very long. It's very hard to make lasting friendships that way. And my father was rather strict with me and my two younger sisters. He insisted on proper behaviour and very often vetoed our choices of boyfriends. There was always a curfew whenever my sisters or I would go out on a date — we had to be home on time or else. But I never resented his authority. In fact, I'm thankful for my strict upbringing; I feel it has helped me learn discipline — and that's very important in this business.

Edmund Burke photo

“Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue. Pity, benevolence, friendship, are things almost unknown in high stations.”

A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Context: The rich in all societies may be thrown into two classes. The first is of those who are powerful as well as rich, and conduct the operations of the vast political machine. The other is of those who employ their riches wholly in the acquisition of pleasure. As to the first sort, their continual care and anxiety, their toilsome days and sleepless nights, are next to proverbial. These circumstances are sufficient almost to level their condition to that of the unhappy majority; but there are other circumstances which place them in a far lower condition. Not only their understandings labour continually, which is the severest labour, but their hearts are torn by the worst, most troublesome, and insatiable of all passions, by avarice, by ambition, by fear and jealousy. No part of the mind has rest. Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue. Pity, benevolence, friendship, are things almost unknown in high stations.

John Byrom photo

“The Church is indeed, in its real Intent,
An Assembly where Nothing but
Friendship is meant;
And the utter Extinction of Foeship and Wrath
By the Working of Love in the Strength of its Faith.”

John Byrom (1692–1763) Poet, inventor of a shorthand system

X & XI
Miscellaneous Poems (1773), A Paraphrase on the Prayer used in The Church Liturgy for All Sorts and Conditions Of Men
Context: The Church is indeed, in its real Intent,
An Assembly where Nothing but
Friendship is meant;
And the utter Extinction of Foeship and Wrath
By the Working of Love in the Strength of its Faith.
This gives it its holy and catholic Name,
And truly confirms its apostolic Claim;
Showing what the One Saviour's One Mission had been:
"Go and teach all the World," — ev'ry Creature therein. In the Praise ever due to the Gospel of Grace
Its Universality holds the first Place.
When an Angel proclaim'd Its glad Tidings the Morn
That the Son of the Virgin, the Saviour, was born,
"Which shall be to all People," was said to complete
The angelical Message, so good and so great,
Full of " Glory to God," in the Regions Above,
And of "Goodness to Men," is so Boundless a Love.

Thomas Jefferson photo

“I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be ever maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce, and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj110158)) Thomas Leiper (12 June 1815). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 11 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-11_Bk.pdf, pp. 477–478.
The sentence "I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be." was used by US-President Barack Obama in his A New Beginning Speech.
1810s
Context: We concur in considering the government of England as totally without morality, insolent beyond bearing, inflated with vanity and ambition, aiming at the exclusive dominion of the sea, lost in corruption, of deep-rooted hatred towards us, hostile to liberty wherever it endeavors to show its head, and the eternal disturber of the peace of the world. In our estimate of Bonaparte, I suspect we differ. [... ] Our form of government is odious to him, as a standing contrast between republican and despotic rule; and as much from that hatred, as from ignorance in political economy, he had excluded intercourse between us and his people, by prohibiting the only articles they wanted from us, that is, cotton and tobacco. Whether the war we have had with England, and the achievements of that war, and the hope that we may become his instruments and partisans against that enemy, may induce him, in future, to tolerate our commercial intercourse with his people, is still to be seen. For my part, I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be ever maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce, and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all. It is our business to manufacture for ourselves whatever we can, to keep our markets open for what we can spare or want; and the less we have to do with the amities or enmities of Europe, the better. Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.

Ivan Illich photo

“I do not believe that friendship today can flower out — can come out — of political life. I do believe that if there is something like a political life to be — to remain for us, in this world of technology — then it begins with friendship.”

Ivan Illich (1926–2002) austrian philosopher and theologist

We the People interview (1996)
Context: I do not believe that friendship today can flower out — can come out — of political life. I do believe that if there is something like a political life to be — to remain for us, in this world of technology — then it begins with friendship.
Therefore my task is to cultivate disciplined, self-denying, careful, tasteful friendships. Mutual friendships always. I-and-you and, I hope, a third one, out of which perhaps community can grow. Because perhaps here we can find what the good is.

Katherine Paterson photo
Marlene Dietrich photo
Michael Gove photo
George Adamski photo

“The idea is that the citizens of each nation, through these efforts, will grow into closer united friendship with their countrymen, without discrimination or divisions of any kind. In time it is hoped that these national efforts will overflow into worldwide understanding and friendship.”

George Adamski (1891–1965) American ufologist

The Friendship Case: Space Brothers teach lessons of brotherhood – an excerpt by Gerard Aartsen Share International http://share-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2011/2011-04.htm#correo (2011)

Joseph Chamberlain photo
Hippolytus of Rome photo
Jaquira Díaz photo

“The world isn’t kind to black and brown girls, or black and brown women, especially when they come from working-class communities or from poverty. My girls taught me that it’s possible to make our own families, to find our families. They helped me believe in love and friendship and hope. But more than anything, after they had girls of their own, it was their girls who taught me the most important lessons: they helped me see the girl I was…”

Jaquira Díaz Puerto Rican writer

On the lessons her “home girls” taught her in “‘Either Hyper-Visible or Invisible’: An Interview with Jaquira Díaz” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/either-hyper-visible-or-invisible-an-interview-with-jaquira-diaz/ in Los Angeles Review of Books (2019 Oct 29)

“I keep thinking what happens when the power of love is twisted into the love of power. … When he bought our temple we had an eternal light going. Jim asked us to leave it. He wanted to keep it burning as a sign of our friendship and what we stood for. All last night I kept wondering, where did it go out?”

Maurice Davis (1921–1993) American rabbi

On Jim Jones, upon hearing of the mass murders and suicides of Jonestown, as quoted in "Cult Chief's Beginnings in Indianapolis Recalled" by James Feron, The New York Times (22 November 1978); in the early years of Jones' ministries, Davis had sold Jones a synagogue in Indianapolis within which Jones housed his first "People's Temple"; also quoted in "Masters and Slaves: The Tragedy of Jonestown", by Fanita English, M.S.W, in Idea, Vol.1, no.2 (1 September 1996) http://www.ideajournal.com/articles.php?id=7

John Quincy Adams photo

“America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet on her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

Independence Day address (1821)

Chris Martin photo
Migdalia Cruz photo

“I wanted to write a play about racism, about poverty, about the negative forces that haunt us and make us murderous—and the positive forces that do daily battle for us—like love, friendship, family—which lead to some kind of hope…”

Migdalia Cruz (1958) American writer

On what motivated her to write the play El Grito in “INTERVIEW WITH MIGDALIA CRUZ, PLAYWRIGHT” https://collaboraction.typepad.com/collaboraction/2009/07/interview-with-migdalia-cruz-playwright.html in Collaboraction

Adam West photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people -- a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)

Mary McCarthy photo
Dhyan Chand photo

“You and your boys have done wonderfully to foster the game of hockey in our country I hope that you will return to India with good impressions and with the same feeling of friendship to the German hockey players as we feel towards you…Tell them how much we all admired the sill and performance of the prefect hockey they have shown us.”

Dhyan Chand (1905–1979) Indian field hockey player

George Evers, President of the Deutsch Hockey Board and the International Hockey Federation after India won the Olympics at Berlin in a message to Dhyan Chand quoted in "India and the Olympics" in page=64

Ramsay MacDonald photo
Étienne de La Boétie photo
Étienne de La Boétie photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo

“That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed. … We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents… But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in human friendliness. Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity…Hence we cannot possibly wish success to your arms…. But ours is a unique position. We resist British imperialism no less than Nazism… If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny… Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field… No spoliator can compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or unwilling, of the victim…. The rulers may have our land and bodies but not our souls…. We know what the British heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid… We have found in non-violence a force which, if organized, can without doubt match itself against a combination of all the most violent forces in the world… If not the British, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Letter to Hitler. 24 December 1940. Quoted from Koenraad Elst: Return of the Swastika (2007). (Also in https://web.archive.org/web/20100310135408/http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/gandhihitler.html)
1940s

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews…. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Mahatma Gandhi, Harijan, 26 November 1938. Quoted from Hinduism and Judaism compilation https://web.archive.org/web/20060423090103/http://www.nhsf.org.uk/images/stories/HinduDharma/Interfaith/hinduzion.pdf
1930s

Amet-khan Sultan photo

“Love and boundless devotion to the great Motherland does not exclude love for the native land, for the native places, and graves of ancestors; on the contrary, this last love decorates and enhances the love for the great Motherland, it adorns and enriches human happiness … Our Great Homeland consists of our native lands: the great friendly family of Soviet peoples consists of our people, of our families. Everything that hinders the world, the happiness of the family and the people, should be carefully studied and eliminated, because peace, friendship and the power of our country, our people depend on it. Proceeding from these convictions, in the name of friendship and happiness of all nations, I am the son of my people, at the same time infinitely loyal to the Great Motherland, my own Communist Party – a citizen of the USSR – a son of the Soviet people, I appeal to the Leninist Party: 1. My people are humiliated and offended by the fact that they were expelled from their native land without need or reason. Return them to their native land - Crimea. 2. Equality is taken away from the people. Restore this equality, and allow them into the monolithic friendly family of the peoples of the USSR as an equal people.”

Amet-khan Sultan (1920–1971) WWII fighter pilot and twice Hero of the Soviet Union who went on to become test pilot

Любовь и беспредельная преданность великой Родине не исключают любви к родному краю, к родным местам, могилам своих предков, наоборот, эта последняя любовь украшает и усиливает любовь к великой Родине, она украшает и обогащает человеческое счастье… Великая наша Родина состоит и из наших родных краев: великая дружественная семья советских народов состоит из наших народов, из наших семей. Всё, что мешает миру, счастью семьи и народа, должно быть заботливо изучено и устранено, ибо от этого зависит мир, дружба и могущество нашей страны, нашего народа. Исходя из этих убеждений, во имя дружбы и счастья всех народов, я — сын своего народа, вместе с тем беспредельно преданный Великой Родине, родной Коммунистической партии — гражданин СССР — сын советского народа, обращаюсь к ленинской партии с просьбой: 1. Народ мой унижен, оскорблён тем, что безвинно, без нужды и основания выслан из родного края. Верните его в родной край — Крым. 2. У народа отнято равноправие. Восстановите это равноправие, верните его в монолитную дружественную семью народов СССР как равноправный народ.
From a petition he signed (letter) http://ndkt.org/yu.-osmanov-ob-amethane-sultane.html to the leadership of the Soviet Union resquesting the rehabilitation and right of return for the Crimean Tatar people
Quotes by Amet-khan

Tulsi Gabbard photo
Lucy Maud Montgomery photo
Hendrik Verwoerd photo

“I appeal to the English-speaking people of South Africa not to allow themselves to be hurt, though I can feel their sadness. A framework has fallen away, but what is of greater importance is friendship and getting together as one nation – as white people who have to defend their future together. Now there is a chance of standing together – one free country standing together on a basis which is the desire of friendship with Great Britain.”

Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966) Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966

In response to a comment by Douglas Mitchell (leader of the opposition) that South Africa was retreating into isolation, as quoted in The New Republic https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rRI1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=wqULAAAAIBAJ&pg=5390%2C4506760, Glasgow Herald (30 May 1961)

Hendrik Verwoerd photo

“Britain must now take our hand of friendship or reject it. I do not believe it will be rejected.”

Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966) Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966
Hannah Arendt photo
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham photo
Ravi Shankar photo

“Without…Yehudi Menuhin, the West may not have found Indian classical music and decades later…thanks to Menuhin’s chance meeting and later lasting friendship with the master sitarist Ravi Shankar, the Wets witnessed the sublimity that the merging of the Western and Indian classical music could produce.”

Ravi Shankar (1920–2012) Indian musician and sitar player

[Wetzel, Richard, The Globalization of Music in History, http://books.google.com/books?id=kjS9PnHJUE4C&pg=PA26, 17 June 2013, Routledge, 978-1-136-62624-1, 26–]

Robert Greene photo
Teal Swan photo
Simone de Beauvoir photo
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands photo

“to one of which I am attached by bonds of friendship, to other by ties of common origin”

Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (1880–1962) Queen of the Netherlands 1898 - 1948

Queen Wilhelmina and the Boers, 1899 - 1902, MA PCNI dissertation, E.R.J.G. Picard, S1029215, Prof.dr.H. te Velde, 26-06-2018.

Jason Reynolds photo

“The truths are universal: Every kid knows fear. Every kid knows family and friendship. Loss, love, laughter. Everything else is just detail.”

Jason Reynolds (1983) author of young adult novels

As quoted in[Rockey Fleming, Alexandra, Meet the Inspiring Author Who Writes Books He Wanted to Read Growing Up: 'Every Kid Knows Fear', https://people.com/human-interest/jason-reynolds-author-long-way-down/, People, 10 March 2020, October 24, 2017]

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Alastair Reynolds photo
Tatiana de la tierra photo

“The early days of esto no tiene nombre were the happiest time in my life. I had a vision, I had hope, and I was not alone. There was a lot of love going around then — sexual love, spiritual love, friendship love, literature love, publishing love. Perfect love.”

Tatiana de la tierra (1961–2012) Latina writer and activist

On her time working for the lesbian magazine esto no tiene nombre (as quoted in “Celebrating Tatiana De La Tierra And The Latina Lesbian Zine Culture Of The '90s” https://bust.com/books/194419-tatiana-de-la-tierra-zine-culture.html in Bust Magazine)

Paul Rey photo

“My best friends are my memories
They're the only ones that save me from misery”

Paul Rey (1992) Swedish singer

Source: Song Tear me down

Henry James photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Benito Mussolini photo

“No one knows better than I with forty years' political experience that policy--particularly a revolutionary policy--has its tactical requirements. I recognised the Soviets in 1924. In 1934, I signed with them a treaty of commerce and friendship. I, therefore, understood that, especially as Ribbentrop's forecast about the non-intervention of Britain and France has not come off, you are obliged to avoid the second front [with Russia]. You have had to pay for this in that Russia has, without striking a blow, been the great profiteer of the war in Poland and the Baltic. But I, who was born a revolutionary and have not modified my revolutionary mentality, tell you that you cannot permanently sacrifice the principles of your revolution to the tactical requirements of a given moment... I have also the definite duty to add that a further step in the relations with Moscow would have catastrophic repercussions in Italy, where the unanimity of anti-Bolshevik feeling is absolute, granite-hard, and unbreakable. Permit me to think that this will not happen. The solution of your Lebensraum is in Russia, and nowhere else... The day when we shall have demolished Bolshevism we shall have kept faith with both our revolutions. Then it will be the turn of the great democracies, who will not be able to survive the cancer which gnaws them...”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

1930s
Source: Letter to Hitler, quoted in Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm

Jaswant Singh photo

“We will pick up the threads from the visit of the president of Pakistan. We will increasingly endeavor to revise the vision of the relationship of peace, friendship and cooperation with Pakistan.”

Jaswant Singh (1938–2020) Indian politician and retired army officer

As Minister of External Affairs, His career events [citation needed]

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“You have got to have something in which to believe. You have got to have leaders, organization, friendships, and contacts that help you to believe that, and help you to put out your best.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Remarks to the Leaders of the United Defense Fund (April 29, 1954). Source: Eisenhower Presidential Library. Archived https://web.archive.org/web/20210125121539/https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/eisenhowers/quotes from the original https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/eisenhowers/quotes on January 25, 2021.
1950s

Russell Tovey photo

“When I was younger and really busy, I think I did lose sight of who exactly I was. Mental wellbeing is something that is so important in any career but in acting in particular. That’s why friendship and family is so important to me.”

Russell Tovey (1981) British actor

Said in an interview with the Guardian. Russell Tovey: ‘When I started having sex I panicked because I didn’t feel old enough’ https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/11/russell-tovey-when-i-started-having-sex-i-panicked-because-i-didnt-feel-old-enough (11 March 2018)

Sufyan al-Thawri photo

“Sell not the friendship of the Lord for the friendship of the world and its possessions.”

Sufyan al-Thawri (716–778) Muslim Scholar and founder of Thawri Madhhab

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 29

Prevale photo

“In love and friendship small attentions give great emotions.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) In amore e in amicizia piccole attenzioni regalano grandi emozioni.
Source: prevale.net

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell photo
Lauren Jauregui photo

“I rekindled a ­friendship I hadn't had in a long time and I was reminded of all the parts of me that had left. I was like, 'Wow, I love to paint and to write, and to be outside...'”

Lauren Jauregui (1996) Cuban-American singer and songwriter

Billboard Cover: Fifth Harmony on Surviving Pop-Star Fame and 'Finally Having a Damn Voice', Billboard, May 5, 2016 https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/cover-story/7356880/fifth-harmony-billboard-cover-story-fame-challenges-new-album-the-x-factor,

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg photo
Chanakya photo
Michelle Obama photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
Charles Kingsley photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo
Harbhajan Singh photo
Khalil Gibran photo
Marcus Tullius Cicero photo
Baltasar Gracián photo
Baltasar Gracián photo
Samuel Richardson photo
Isocrates photo
François de La Rochefoucauld photo
Marilyn Monroe photo
Thomas Edison photo