“The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.”

— Joseph Addison

As quoted in Hugs for Girlfriends : Stories, Sayings, and Scriptures to Encourage and Inspire (2001) by Philis Boultinghouse and LeAnn Weiss, p. 7; there seem to be no published sources available for this statement prior to 2001.
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Joseph Addison 226

politician, writer and playwright 1672–1719

Robert Blair The Grave

Part I, line 88.
The Grave (1743)

“For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously!”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 283; Variant translation: For believe me: the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is — to live dangerously.
The Gay Science (1882)
Context: For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!

“Learning and enjoyment are the secret to a fulfilled life. Learning without enjoyment wears you down, enjoyment without learning dulls you.”

Richard David Precht (1964) German philosopher and author

Quote translated from his German book: Wer bin ich – und wenn ja, wie viele? Eine philosophische Reise, Goldmann, München 2007, ISBN 3-442-31143-8

“True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.”

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

“The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.”

Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978) Vice-President of the USA under Lyndon B. Johnson

“From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Bech, A Book (1970)

“It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) German mathematician and physical scientist

Letter to Farkas Bolyai (2 September 1808)
Context: It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. [Wahrlich es ist nicht das Wissen, sondern das Lernen, nicht das Besitzen sondern das Erwerben, nicht das Da-Seyn, sondern das Hinkommen, was den grössten Genuss gewährt. ] When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again. The never-satisfied man is so strange; if he has completed a structure, then it is not in order to dwell in it peacefully, but in order to begin another. I imagine the world conqueror must feel thus, who, after one kingdom is scarcely conquered, stretches out his arms for others.

“True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.”

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

No. 15 (March 17, 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

“As nations are among the largest and the most complete divisions into which society is formed, the grandest aggregations of organized human power; as they raise to observation and distinction the world’s greatest men, and call into requisition the highest order of talent and ability for their guidance, preservation and success, they are ever among the most attractive, instructive and useful subjects of thought, to those just entering upon the duties and activities of life.”

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

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

“Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

"Of Friendship"
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

“The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.”

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