Quotes about friend
page 39

Lucy Larcom photo

“Sometimes it seems to me that God's way of dealing with me is not to let me see much of my friends, those who are most to me in the spiritual life, lest I should forget that the invisible bond is the only reality. That is the only way I can reconcile myself to the inevitable separations of life and death.”

Lucy Larcom (1824–1893) American teacher, poet, author

Her last letter to Episcopalian Bishop Phillips Brooks, just prior to his death on 23 January (17 January 1893), in Ch. 12 : Last Years.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)

Camille Paglia photo

“King Pandion, he is dead,
All thy friends are lapped in lead.”

Richard Barnfield (1574–1627) English poet

Ode, l. 23.
Poems: In Divers Humours (1598)

Michael T. Flynn photo

“Suspicion is the mother of invention
And a fishin' expedition
Needs no repetition
For the end is never new: you need a friend
and you.”

Walt Kelly (1913–1973) American cartoonist

The Jack Acid Society Black Book (1960)

Marsilio Ficino photo
Boris Johnson photo

“Ok, I said to myself as I sighted the bird down the end of the gun. This time, my fine feathered friend, there is no escape.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Friends, Voters, Countrymen p59
2000s, 2001

Allan Kardec photo
Robert Graves photo

“Shells used to come bursting on my bed at midnight, even though Nancy shared it with me; strangers in daytime would assume the faces of friends who had been killed… I could not use a telephone, I felt sick every time I travelled by train, and to see more than two new people in a single day prevented me from sleeping.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

Source: Goodbye to All That (1929), Ch.26 On being at home in Harlech in 1919. During the First World War, the mental effects of war on the fighting men were called shell shock or neurasthenia — or dismissed altogether as cowardice. Graves describes very clearly symptoms of what would now be seen as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Billy Crystal photo
Eugène Boudin photo
Andrew Johnson photo

“Colored men of Tennessee, humble and unworthy as I am, if no better shall be found I will indeed be your Moses and lead you through the Red Sea of war and bondage to a fairer future of liberty and peace. I speak now as one who feels the world his country and all who love equal rights his friends.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

As quoted in "The Good Fight" https://archive.org/details/orationsandaddr03curtgoog (1865), by George William Curtis.
Quote

Laraine Day photo
André Maurois photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“It is impossible for any man, of late, to have set foot beyond the shores of these islands, without observing with deep mortification a great and sudden change in the manner in which England is spoken of abroad; without finding, that instead of being looked up to as the patron, no less than the model, of constitutional freedom, as the refuge from persecution, and the shield against oppression, her name is coupled by every tongue on the continent with everything that is hostile to improvement, and friendly to despotism, from the banks of the Tagus to the shores of the Bosphorus…time was, and that but lately, when England was regarded by Europe as the friend of liberty and civilization, and therefore of happiness and prosperity, in every land; because it was thought that her rulers had the wisdom to discover, that the selfish interests and political influence of England were best promoted by the extension of liberty and civilization. Now, on the contrary, the prevailing opinion is, that England thinks her advantage to le in withholding from other countries that constitutional liberty which she herself enjoys.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (18 June 1829) against the Duke of Wellington's foreign policy, quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), pp. 128-129.
1820s

George W. Bush photo
Ignatius Sancho photo
William Luther Pierce photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“Whensoever hostile aggressions…require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.”

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

Letter to Andrew Jackson (3 December 1806)
1800s, Second Presidential Administration (1805-1809)

Jimmy Carter photo
Marianne von Werefkin photo

“My eyes are magical glass [when looking at] the outside world, and it can transform a lot into bewitching beauty. Paris, Munich.... they're all the same. The country is nice, because it is closer to nature and bad because we [Werefkin and Jawlensky] are no longer people from nature. I saw this at Blagodat. The more a person improves himself, the more one is doomed to loneliness. One doesn't need friends, one needs oneself and anybody who loves you like themselves.”

Marianne von Werefkin (1860–1938) expressionist painter

Quote of Marianne Werefkin, in a letter to Jawlensky, 1909-1910, fond 19-1460, 38-39 as reprinted in Lauchkaite-Surgailene, Vilnius no. 3, sec. 16, 136;; as quoted in 'Identity and Reminiscence in Marianne Werefkin's Return Home', c. 1909; Adrienne Kochman http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring06/52-spring06/spring06article/171-ambiguity-of-home-identity-and-reminiscence-in-marianne-werefkins-return-home-c-1909
'Blagodat' is the name of the family landed estate in the Russian country where Jawlensky often accompanied Werefkin before their common move to Munich.
1906 - 1911

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Roger Ebert photo
Anastas Mikoyan photo

“All peoples enjoy freedom, and freedom for the development of their culture… There is no Jewish problem in the Soviet Union at all… I have many friends who are Jews.”

Anastas Mikoyan (1895–1978) Russian revolutionary and Soviet statesman

Statement of January 1959, as quoted in "The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948-1967" (1984), p. 66

David Myatt photo
Enver Hoxha photo
Pricasso photo

“So one day at a friend's party, where there was plenty of alcohol, I decided to do a portrait of someone. And from there it just grew.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

[Lee Rondganger, Artist with unusual technique a Sexpo hit, The Star, South Africa, 28 September 2007, 2, Independent Online]

Robert Owen photo

“Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen.”

Samuel Paterson (1728–1802) English bookseller and auctioneer

Joineriana: or The Book of Scraps (London: 1772), Vol. I, p. 40

Fiona Apple photo
Stephen King photo

“He was waiting to choke you on a marble, to smother you with a dry-cleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boogie of electricity- Available At Your Nearest Switch plate Or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There was death in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of cigarettes. He was around all the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poison beetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nerdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there too- Shower With A Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, the food you ate. Who's out there? you howled in the dark when you were all frightened and all alone, and it was his answer that came back: Don't be afraid, it's just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel, what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis! Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Hey-ho, let's go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in the middle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls of pills, munch em up. That peculiar cast of the fingernails following asphyxiation- in its final grim struggle to survive the brain takes all oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under the nails. Hi, folks, my name's Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you want- hell, we're old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranial blood clot or something; can't stay, got to see a woman about a breech birth, then I've got a little smoke-inhalation job to do in Omaha.”

Pet Sematary (1983)

Arnold Schwarzenegger photo
Margaret Cho photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
W. Somerset Maugham photo
Kunti photo
Jane Austen photo

“My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, I said "No, but I want a regular banana later, so … yeah."”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Strategic Grill Locations

Cesar Chavez photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Nelson Mandela photo

“You sharpen your ideas by reducing yourself to the level of the people you are with and a sense of humour and a complete relaxation, even when you’re discussing serious things, does help to mobilise friends around you. And I love that.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Nelson Mandela on humour, From an interview with Tim Couzens, Verne Harris and Mac Maharay for Mandela: The Authorized Portrait, 2006 (13 August 2005). Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes
2000s

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax photo

“A Man is to go about his own Business as if he had not a Friend in the World to help him in it.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections

Roger Ebert photo
Glenn Dorsey photo

“Imagine being left out in the freezing cold, without shelter and bedding for warmth or a friend to ease your loneliness. … Be your dog's biggest defender and keep them indoors with you, and give them the love and companionship they deserve.”

Glenn Dorsey (1985) American football player, defensive lineman

"Glenn Dorsey: Be Your Dog's Biggest Defender" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD56e9DIT3Q, video for PETA (15 December 2011).

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Charles, Prince of Wales photo

“Mrs. Parker Bowles is a great friend of mine…a friend for a very long time. She will continue to be a friend for a long time.”

Charles, Prince of Wales (1948) son of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

When asked about his relationship with Camilla during his interview with journalist Jonathan Dimbleby in 1994.
Book: Charles and Camilla: Portrait of a Love Affair, Author: Gyles Brandreth, page 280
1990s

Milton Bradley (baseball) photo

“I don't play this game to make friends.”

Milton Bradley (baseball) (1978) Major League Baseball player

ESPN, Bradley knows only one way — the hard way, Alan Schwarz, July 10, 2003, 2009-01-04 http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1574709&type=story,

Václav Havel photo

“My dear friends, I bid you farewell as your President. I remain with you as your fellow citizen!”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Farewell Address (2003)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“George Bernard Shaw is said to have told W. S. C.:
Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.
W. S. C. to G. B. S.:
Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one.”

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

Version given in Irrepressible Churchill: A Treasury of Winston Churchill’s Wit by Kay Halle, 1966
Apocryphal, originally featured Noël Coward and Randolph Churchill (Winston’s son); attested 1946 (columnist Walter Winchell, attributed to anonymous United Press journalist in London). Originally only featured first half about lack of friend; second half (retort about lack of second performance) attested 1948, as was replacement of personages by George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill. Specific plays added in later variants, ranging from Man and Superman (1903) to Saint Joan (1923), and appeared in biographies and quote collections from the 1960s.
The quote is presumably apocryphal due to earliest attestations being too different, less famous personages (easily replaced by more famous ones), the quotation becoming more elaborate in later versions, the 20+ year gap between putative utterance and first attestation, and the approximately 50 year gap between putative utterance and appearance in reference works, all as undocumented hearsay.
Detailed discussion at “ Here are Two Tickets for the Opening of My Play. Bring a Friend—If You Have One http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/03/25/two-tickets-shaw/”, Garson O’Toole, Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/, March 25, 2012.
Misattributed

Francis Parkman photo

“John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. I like to read Archie Ammons, my great friend. And Harold Bloom, another former student.”

M. H. Abrams (1912–2015) American literary theorist

On his reading preferences.
Cornell Chronicle interview (1999)

Miley Cyrus photo
Miriam Makeba photo
Rab Butler photo
Herman Cain photo

“Lawrence O'Donnell: Mr. Cain, in fact, you were in college from 1963 to 1967, at the height of the civil rights movement, exactly when the most important demonstrations and protests were going on. You could easily, as a student at Morehouse, between 1963 and 1967, actively participated in the kinds of protests that got African Americans the rights they enjoy today. You watched from that perspective at Morehouse when you were not participating in those processes. You watch black college students from around the country and white college students from around the country come to the South and be murdered fighting for the right of African Americans. Do you regret sitting on those sidelines at that time?
Herman Cain: Lawrence, your attempt to say that I sat on the sidelines is an irrelevant comparison that you are trying to deduce from that—
Lawrence O'Donnell: It's in your book. It's in your book.
Herman Cain: Now, Lawrence, I know what's in my book. Now, let me ask you a question. Did you expect every black student and every black college in America to be out there, in the middle of every fight? The answer is no. So for you to say, why was I sitting on the sidelines, I think that that is an inaccurate deduction that you are trying to make. You didn't know, Lawrence, what I was doing with the rest of my life. You didn't know what my family situation may have been. Maybe, just maybe, I had a sick relative, which is why I might not have been sitting in, or doing the Freedom Rides. So what I'm saying, Lawrence, is, with all due respect my friend, your deduction is incorrect, and it's not logical, okay?”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

referring to "This is Herman Cain!" recounting that Herman read about sit-ins and Freedom Rides, and followed his father's advice to "stay out of trouble".

Aung San Suu Kyi photo
Vin Scully photo
Alexander Pope photo

“Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? in every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Letter, written in collaboration with Dr John Arbuthnot, to Jonathan Swift (December 5, 1732) upon the death of John Gay.

Syed Ahmed Khan photo
William Luther Pierce photo
Marie Bilders-van Bosse photo

“In the afternoon he [ Johannes Bosboom ] took me to look for it [her first showed painting, ever]. There it was! I thought I was swimming! And next day, our lounge was full of people [at home, with her father], a friend of dad came in and he said: 'I have seen your painting. Very well, indeed. Do you know it just has been sold?' Suddenly it fell silent in the room. Daddy looked at me with surprised eyes. It was my declaration of independence.”

Marie Bilders-van Bosse (1837–1900) painter from the Netherlands

translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Maria Bilders-van Bosse, in Nederlands): 's Middags nam hij [ nl:Johannes Bosboom ] me mee, om ernaar te gaan kijken [haar eerst-getoonde schilderij]. Daar hing het! Ik dacht dat ik zwom! En den volgenden dag, de salon was bij ons [thuis bij haar vader] vol menschen, komt een vriend van papa binnen en zegt: 'Ik heb je schilderij gezien. Heel goed. Weet je dat het verkocht is?' Het was ineens stil in de kamer. Pappa keek me met een paar verbaasde ogen aan. Het was mijn onafhankelijkheidsverklaring.
Quote of Marie Bilders-van Bosse, c. Jan. 1875; as cited by Dutch writer Augusta de Wit, in 'Marie Philippine Bilders-van Bosse', in artmagazine 'De Gids', 1900, p. 513
Bosboom had organized that one of her early paintings was showed in the shop-window of art-dealer Goupil in The Hague; it became her first sale, to Dr. Blom Coster

Marcus Tullius Cicero photo

“Thus they are destitute of that very lovely and exquisitely natural friendship, which is an object of desire in itself and for itself, nor can they learn from themselves how valuable and powerful such a friendship is. For each man loves himself, not that he may get from himself some reward for his own affection, but because each one is of himself dear to himself. And unless this same feeling be transferred to friendship, a true friend will never be found; for a true friend is one who is, as it were, a second self.”
Ita pulcherrima illa et maxime naturali carent amicitia per se et propter se expetita nec ipsi sibi exemplo sunt, haec vis amicitiae et qualis et quanta sit. Ipse enim se quisque diligit, non ut aliquam a se ipse mercedem exigat caritatis suae, sed quod per se sibi quisque carus est. Quod nisi idem in amicitiam transferetur, verus amicus numquam reperietur; est enim is qui est tamquam alter idem.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Section 80; translation by J. F. Stout
Laelius De Amicitia – Laelius On Friendship (44 BC)

Herman Kahn photo
Max Stirner photo
Tessa Virtue photo
Ray Comfort photo

“… I think I'm a pig: Pigs have got eyes, pigs have got mouths, pigs have got teeth, I've got friends who eat like pigs, I sound like a pig when I sleep.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

AronRa vs Ray Comfort (September 17th, 2012), Radio Paul's Radio Rants

John Updike photo
Henry Aldrich photo

“If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink:
Good wine, a friend, or being dry,
Or lest we should be by and by,
Or any other reason why.”

Henry Aldrich (1647–1710) Theologian, philosopher, architect, and poet

Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse, H. J. C. Grierson and G. Bullough, eds. (1934) Oxford University Press.

Craig Benzine photo

“My friends liked it. My family liked it. I thought, 'If they all like it why can't everyone like it?' I knew I could get an audience.”

Craig Benzine (1980) Filmmaker, comedian, presenter

In response of the question: "After years and 100 videos you only had 32 subscribers? Wasn't that frustrating? What kept you going? Didn't you feel like giving up?"

George W. Bush photo
Guillaume Apollinaire photo

“You see before you a man in his right mind
Worldly-wise and with access to death
Having tested the sorrow of love and its ecstasies
Having sometimes even astonished the professors
Good with languages
Having travelled a great deal
Having seen battle in the Artillery and the Infantry
Wounded in the head trepanned under chloroform
Having lost my best friends in the butchery
As much of antiquity and modernity as can be known I know”

Me voici devant tous un homme plein de sens
Connaissant la vie et de la mort ce qu'un vivant peut connaître
Ayant éprouvé les douleurs et les joies de l'amour
Ayant su quelquefois imposer ses idées
Connaissant plusieurs langages
Ayant pas mal voyagé
Ayant vu la guerre dans l'Artillerie et l'lnfanterie
Blessé à la tête trépané sous le chloroforme
Ayant perdu ses meilleurs amis dans l'effroyable lutte
Je sais d'ancien et de nouveau autant qu'un homme seul pourrait des deux savoir
"La jolie rousse" (The Pretty Redhead), line 1; p. 133.
Calligrammes (1918)

“Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 872
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Abraham Cowley photo

“We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine,
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poetry;
Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine.”

Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) British writer

On the Death of Mr. William Harvey; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Francis Escudero photo
Francis Escudero photo

“True or not, this man who is married to the Star for All Seasons will remain an all-weather friend to me, and to most of us.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2013, Speech: Nomination of Senator Ralph Recto as Senate Pro Tempore

John Gay photo

“It's impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

John Banville photo
Ann Druyan photo
Maleeha Lodhi photo
Jack Osbourne photo

“I had my group of friends, you know, like my real group of friends, and then I had, like, party friends.”

Jack Osbourne (1985) Son of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne

MTV.com Jack Talks About His Addiction and Recovery

Irene Dunne photo
Jerome David Salinger photo
Luís de Camões photo
Philip Schaff photo

“Progress of his Version. Luther was gradually prepared for this work. He found for the first time a complete copy of the Latin Bible in the University Library at Erfurt, to his great delight, and made it his chief study. He derived from it his theology and spiritual nourishment; he lectured and preached on it as professor at Wittenberg day after day. He acquired the knowledge of the original languages for the purpose of its better understanding. He liked to call himself a "Doctor of the Sacred Scriptures."
He made his first attempt as translator with the seven Penitential Psalms, which he published in March, 1517, six months before the outbreak of the Reformation. Then followed several other sections of the Old and New Testaments,—the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Prayer of King Manasseh, the Magnificat of the Virgin Mary, etc., with popular comments. He was urged by his friends, especially by Melanchthon, as well as by his own sense of duty, to translate the whole Bible.
He began with the New Testament in November or December, 1521, and completed it in the following March, before he left the Wartburg. He thoroughly revised it on his return to Wittenberg, with the effectual help of Melanchthon, who was a much better Greek scholar. Sturz at Erfurt was consulted about coins and measures; Spalatin furnished from the Electoral treasury names for the precious stones of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21). The translation was then hurried through three presses, and appeared already Sept. 21, 1522, but without his name.
In December a second edition was required, which contained many corrections and improvements.
He at once proceeded to the more difficult task of translating the Old Testament, and published it in parts as they were ready. The Pentateuch appeared in 1523; the Psalter, 1524.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's competence as a Bible translator

Morarji Desai photo
Daniel T. Gilbert photo
Chris Cornell photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Davey Havok photo