“Friendships, even the best of them, are frail things. One drifts apart.”

Brexit means drifting apart but we don't want to build a wall - Tusk https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43314976 BBC News (7 March 2018)

Speech in Glasgow (6 October 1903), quoted in The Times (7 October 1903), p. 4.
1900s
Context: The Colonies are prepared to meet us. In return for a very moderate preference they will give us a substantial advantage. They will give us, in the first place— I believe they will reserve to us the trade which we already enjoy. They will arrange for tariffs in the future in order not to start industries in competition with those which are already in existence in the mother country... But they will do a great deal more for you. This is certain. Not only will they enable you to retain the trade which you have, but they are ready to give you preference to all the trade which is now done with them by foreign competitors... We must either draw closer together or we shall drift apart... It is, I believe, absolutely impossible for you to maintain in the long run your present loose and indefinable relations and preserve these Colonies parts of the Empire... Can we invent a tie which must be a practical one, which will prevent separation... I say that it is only by commercial union, reciprocal preference, that you can lay the foundations of the confederation of the Empire to which we all look forward as a brilliant possibility.

Source: Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society

Variant: Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: Being Happy!

Source: As quoted in "Alessia Cara Is the Life of the Party - Whether She Likes It or Not" https://archive.md/FVdo0 (28 August 2015), by Chris Martins, Billboard

Source: The Book of Blood and Shadow

A Summer Evening’s Tale
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)