Quotes about friend (4941 quotes, page 43)

“Dear Sir, - I have truly, I must say, written three times, and now hesitate; for did I know your son's works, or, as you say, his gifted merits yet even then I would rather advise you to think well, and not be carried away by the admiration which any friendly hopes (which ardent friends to early talent) may assume: they know not the difficulties or the necessities of the culture of the Fine Arts generally speaking. In regard to yourself, it is you alone can judge how far you are inclined to support him during perhaps a long period of expense; and particularly if you look towards tuition, the more so; for it cannot insure success (however much it may facilitate practice), and therefore it behooves you to weigh well the means in your power before you embark in a profession which requires more care, assiduity, and perseverance than any person can guarantee.”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker

Quote from Turner's letter 4 Dec. 1848 to James Astbury Hammersley; as cited in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, pp. 115-16
James Astbury Hammersley, himself an artist and art-teacher, wrote Turner to ask him to give his son further instructions in painting
1821 - 1851

Hope , Art , Support , Thinking

“I have a terrible problem with procrastination… a friend told me, "Well, you should go to therapy." And I thought about it, but then I said, "Wait a minute. Why should I pay a stranger to listen to me talk when I can get strangers to pay to listen to me talk?"”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

And that's when I got the idea of touring.
Here and Now

Idea , Problem , Waiting

“I love my enemies, but am hell on my friends.”

Ammon Hennacy (1893–1970) American Christian radical

[The Book of Ammon, 1970, Hennacy, 205]

Love , Hell

“A good-natured woman…which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor.”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Letter to Hazlitt (November 10, 1805)

Nature

“Friends front in front of me
Fuckin' wannabes
In your ear
But they don't know Eamon”

Eamon (singer) (1984) American singer

"Get off My Dick!"
Lyrics, I Don't Want You Back (2004)

“His friends, who had been waiting for the death announcement, came to congratulate him. They were eager to hear the complete details of the Trial by Ordeal; but Barrent had learned now that secret knowledge was the road to power. He gave them only the sketchiest outline.”

Robert Sheckley book The Status Civilization

Source: The Status Civilization (1960), Chapter 11 (p. 52)

Death , Secret , Knowledge , Learning

“International Jews.
In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia) Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemborg (Germany) and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognizable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.
Graves: This was written by Winston Churchill, a highly regarded M. P. in England…so, I need hardly remind you that it will take strong evidence to prove the “Protocols” ‘’’a fake!’’’
Raslovlev: At an old bookshop I got a copy of “The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu,” by Maurice Joly, 1864.
I examined what I had. It was obvious that the “Protocols of Zion” was copied from it.
Graves: How did you get this?
Raslovlev: I bought this book from a friend, formerly of the Okhrana, our secret agents in France. They ordered the plagiarism!
When the Bolsheviks came in, we left with what we could take out with us.
How much is it worth to you, or your paper, Mr. Graves?
Graves: Hmm…can’t say yet! …Is Geneva really the place of publication??
Raslovlev: I do know that the “Protocols of Zion: was intended to prove to the Tsar that the Revolt in Russia was a Jewish Plot…it was written by an Okhrana agent…a plagiarist, Mathieu Golovinski!
When it was first published in Russia round 1902, its publisher, Dr. Nilus, claimed it to be notes stolen from an 1897 Zionist congress by French agents!
Graves: But that congress was convened by Theodore Herzl to promote a Jewish state. It was not a secret meeting…Dr. Nilus’s claim is a lie!
Raslovlev: Yes, it is indeed! Let me show you…we will compare the “Protocols” with Joly’s Book.
Raslovlev: Set them side by side Graves, and you will see obvious plagiarism of Joly’s “dialogue!”
Graves: I see…be patient while I go through it…yes! Yes! Yes!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 70-73

Men , People , Lie , Secret

“My lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle.”

William Henry Maule (1788–1858) British politician

"On the Authority of Lord Coleridge" [John Duke Coleridge, first Baron Coleridge (1820–1894)]; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 493. The same quotation is given on the same authority in the ninth edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1905), essentially a reprint of the 1891 edition.

P. G. Wodehouse made use of the same quotation in a short story, "The Man Upstairs," which was published nearly simultaneously in March 1910 in the Cosmopolitan magazine for the American market and for the Strand magazine for the English market. Interestingly, while the American short story uses the "Almighty God" version of the quotation, it appears in a slightly variant form in the English publication: " ' "My learned friend’s manner would be intolerable in an emperor to a black-beetle," ' quoted Beverley." It is probably that Wodehouse (or more likely his editors) altered the quotation to avoid the very strict blasphemy laws that formerly obtained in the United Kingdom, changing the quotation to refer merely to a highly ranked human.
Attributed

God , Learning , Animals

“If I could only impress on the soul of every friend of music, and on high personages in particular, how inimitable are Mozart's works, how profound, how musically intelligent, how extraordinarily sensitive! (for this is how I understand them, how I feel them) — why then the nations would vie with each other to possess such a jewel within their frontiers. Prague should hold him fast — but should reward him, too: for without this, the history of great geniuses is sad indeed, and gives but little encouragement to posterity to further exertions; and unfortunately this is why so many promising intellects fall by the wayside.”

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) Austrian composer

Letter to Franz Rott (December 1787), from The collected correspondence, and London notebooks of Joseph Haydn, ed. H.C. Robbins Landon (1959), p. 73

Sadness , Music , Feeling , Soul

“The hard things are when you have to make your friends disappointed because you think you’re required, for example, by the law to do something that maybe is different than what you would do as a matter of public policy.”

Merrick Garland (1952) American judge

[Merrick Garland, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U1a8pYMJDM, March 18, 2016, Life Lessons Learned, DC Circuit Court Judge Panel, JRCLS International Law Conference, February 15, 2013, Georgetown University Law Center]; also excerpted quote in:
[March 18, 2016, The Quotable Merrick Garland: A Collection of Writings and Remarks, http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202752327128/The-Quotable-Merrick-Garland-A-Collection-of-Writings-and-Remarks, Zoe Tillman, The National Law Journal, March 16, 2016, 0162-7325]
DC Circuit Court Judge Panel, JRCLS International Law Conference (2013)

Law , Disappointment , Thinking

“I not a bit of use for the "propaganda of the deed."These are the tactics of anarchist individualists and not of socialist collectivists. They were developed by and belong exclusively to our anarchist friends and accord perfectly with their philosophy. These and similar measures are reactionary, not revolutionary, and they invariably have a demoralizaing effect upon the following of those who practice them. If I believed in the doctrine of violence and destruction as part policy; if I regarded te class struggle as guerilla warfare, I would join the anarchists and practice as well as preach such tactics.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

Sound Socialist Tactics (1912)

Parting

“If the Superior Man is not serious, then he will not inspire awe in others. If he is not learned, then he will not be on firm ground. He takes loyalty and good faith to be of primary importance, and has no friends who are not of equal (moral) caliber. When he makes a mistake, he doesn't hesitate to correct it.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects, Other chapters

Faith , Learning , Loyalty

“The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached until a friend of both parties tactfully intervenes.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

" The Skeptic as a Critic http://books.google.com/books?id=DlMeAAAAIAAJ&q=%22The+full+potentialities+of+human+fury+cannot+be+reached+until+a+friend+of+both+parties+tactfully+intervenes%22&pg=PA218#v=onepage," The Forum ( February 1929 http://books.google.com/books?id=JqfPAAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+full+potentialities+of+human+fury+cannot+be+reached+until+a+friend+of+both+parties+tactfully+intervenes%22&pg=PA65#v=onepage)

“Clara:
Neighbours, dear friends, ye dream, ye dream : awake!
Gaze not on me with sadly wondering eyes,
I only bid you to your actual wish.
My voice is but the voice of your own hearts.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette (7th March 1835)
Translations, From the German

Dreams , Heart

“I can remember one of the last conversations I had with my very dear and much missed friend, the writer Kathy Acker. This was very soon after I had just become interested and involved with magic. I was saying to her how the way I was then seeing things was that basically magic was about the last and best bastion of revolution. The political revolution, the sexual revolution, these things had their part and had their limits, whereas the idea of a magical revolution would revolve around actually changing people’s consciousnesses, which is to say, actually changing the nature of perceived reality. Kathy agreed with that completely — it sort of followed on some of her own experiences — and I still think that that is true. In some ways, magic is the most political of all of the areas that I’m involved with.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Alan Moore on Anarchism (2009)

People , Way , Idea , Nature

“My guru said you are too old. I thought I was young -- I was 26. And he said you can't and I said I can. I'll show you. He said it will take many sacrifices. And I said I'll give up anything you want. I didn't realise I would have to give up my family for that. I realise now if I had not gone for three months to Orissa my husband would not have run off with Parveen Babi. So it was really a giving up. My children had to go to boarding school after that -- there was no family. I had to give up my lifestyle, my friends, my smoking, my drinking.”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

On her taking up Odissi dance in Orissa and the resultant separation from her husband, quoted in "I have been a hippie all my life".

Children , School , Family , Drink

“More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Message for the new millennium (31 December 1999) http://www.4english.cn/speeches/Annan.htm

History

“Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with the part of another; people are friends in spots.”

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

"Friendships"
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

Friendship , People , Parting

“Welcome back! If you're wondering where our good friend -- Kevin Eubanks couldn't be here. Kevin is on tour. He's in France right now. He called me today and he's over there and he wouldn't be back until next week. So if you're wondering where Kevin Eubanks is, he's with us in spirit certainly.
Okay. Boy, this is the hard part. I want to thank you, the audience. You folks have been just incredibly loyal. (emotionally) This is tricky. (laughs) We wouldn't be on the air without you people. Secondly, this has been the greatest 22 years of my life. (applause)
I am the luckiest guy in the world. I got to meet presidents, astronauts, movie stars, it's just been incredible. I got to work with lighting people who made me look better than I really am. I got to work with audio people who made me sound better than I really do. (voice breaking) And I got to work with producers! And writers! (choked pause) And just all kinds of talented people who make me look a lot smarter than I really am.
I'll tell you something. First year of this show, I lost my mom. Second year, I lost my dad. Then my brother died. And after that, I was pretty much out of family. And the folks here became my family. Consequently, when they went through rough times, I tried to be there for them. The last time we left the show, you might remember we had the 64 children that were born among all our staffers that married. That was a great moment.
And when people say to me, hey why don't you go to ABC? Why don't you go to FOX? Why don't you go…? I didn't know anybody over there. These are the only people I have ever known. I'm also proud to say this is a a union show. And I have never worked (applause) -- I have never worked with a more professional group of people in my life. They get paid good money and they do a good job.
And when the guys and women on this show would show me the new car they bought or the house up the street here in Burbank that one of the guys got, I felt I played a bigger role in their success as they played in mine. That was just a great feeling.
And I'm really excited for Jimmy Fallon. You know, it's fun to kind of be the old guy and sit back here and see where the next generation takes this great institution, and it really is. It's been a great institution for 60 years. I am so glad I got to be a part of it, but it really is time to go, hand it off to the next guy; it really is.
And in closing, I want to quote Johnny Carson, who was the greatest guy to ever do this job. And he said, I bid you all a heartfelt good night. Now that I brought the room down, hey, Garth, have you got anything to liven this party up? Give it a shot! Garth Brooks!”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Farewell speech, February 6, 2014
The Tonight Show

Life , Women , Money , Children

“My friend returned to the gallery, looked once more at the adorable imprint of the most innocent, the most passionate of caresses. A mirror hung near by, where he could compare his present with his former face, the man he was with the man he had been. He never told me and I never asked what his feelings were at that moment. Did he feel that he was too culpable to have inspired a passion in a young girl whom he would have been a fool, almost a criminal, to marry? Did he comprehend that through his age which was so apparent, it was his youth which this child loved? Did he remember, with a keenness that was all too sad, that other, who had never given him a kiss like that at a time when he might have returned it? I only know that he left the same day, determined never again to see one whom he could no longer love as he had loved the other, with the hope, the purity, the soul of a man of twenty.”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

Pierre Fauchery, as quoted by the character "Jules Labarthe"
The Age for Love

Love , Youth , Age , Sadness

“Sometimes it's hard to concentrate these days. I was thinking about the history of this building [Eventim Apollo] and the Bowie history. So I started to think about that and my mind began to wander. It's not a good…So I haven't really been talking about some things and I kind of… now it feels like it's conspicuous because I lost a really close friend of mine, somebody who…I'll say this too, I grew up as 4 boys, 4 brothers, and I lost my brother 2 years ago tragically like that in an accident and after that and losing a few other people, I'm not good at it, meaning I'm not…I have not been willing to accept the reality and that's just how I'm dealing with it (applause starts). No, no, no, no. So I want to be there for the family, be there for the community, be there for my brothers in my band, certainly the brothers in his band. But these things will take time but my friend is going to be gone forever and I will just have to…These things take time and I just want to send this out to everyone who was affected by it and they all back home and here appreciate it so deeply the support and the good thoughts of a man who was a… you know he wasn't just a friend he was someone I looked up to like my older brother. About two days after the news, I think it was the second night we were sleeping in this little cabin near the water, a place he would've loved. And all these memories started coming in about 1:30am like woke me up. Like big memories, memories I would think about all the time. Like the memories were big muscles. And then I couldn't stop the memories. And trying to sleep it was like if the neighbors had the music playing and you couldn't stop it. But then it was fine because then it got into little memories. It just kept going and going and going. And I realized how lucky I was to have hours worth of…you know if each of these memories was quick and I had hours of them. How fortunate was I?! And I didn't want to be sad, wanted to be grateful not sad. I'm still thinking about those memories and I will live with these memories in my heart and I will…love him forever.”

Eddie Vedder (1964) musician, songwriter, member of Pearl Jam

Talking about Chris Cornell for the first time since his death during a concert in London on June 6, 2017.

Love , People , Sadness , Family

“Welfarism and excessive spending and deficits and socialism divide us, because everybody has to go to Washington. Those who have the biggest clout, whose who are the best lobbyists, those who go and they grab. And whether it's the medical industrial complex, or the banking industry, or the military industrial complex, that's who ends up controlling our government… For so long, conservatives and constitutionalists have lost the argument, they lost the moral highground. Because those who want to give things away, not talking about where they steal it from, but they want to give things and take care of people, they get the moral highground and they come by as being compassionate. And we who believe in liberty, we lack compassion. But the truth is, there's only one compassionate system known to man, and that is freedom and personal responsibility, then there's enough wealth, and then we will all have personal responsibility to use this compassion that we have, first to take care of our families and friends and neighbors, and there would be so much wealth that we could spread this wealth around the world.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

New Hampshire Homeschool Meet and Greet, September 30, 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0-OIdm6Z8
2000s, 2006-2009

People , Truth , World , Family

“De Bellaigue is at pains to portray Mossadegh as — in the words of the jacket copy — “one of the first liberals of the Middle East, a man whose conception of liberty was as sophisticated as any in Europe or America.” But the trouble is, there is nothing in Mossadegh’s career — spanning half a century, as provincial governor, cabinet minister, and finally prime minister — to portray him as even remotely a lover of liberty. De Bellaigue quotes Mossadegh as saying that a trusted leader is “that person whose every word is accepted and followed by the people.” To which de Bellaigue adds: “His understanding of democracy would always be coloured by traditional ideas of Muslim leadership, whereby the community chooses a man of outstanding virtue and follows him wherever he takes them.” Word for word, that could have been the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s definition of a true leader. Mossadegh also made a habit of appearing in his street meetings with a copy of the Koran in hand. According to de Bellaigue, Mossadegh liked to say that “anyone forgetting Islam is base and dishonourable, and should be killed.” During his premiership, Mossadegh demonstrated his dictatorial tendency to the full: Not once did he hold a full meeting of the council of ministers, ignoring the constitutional rule of collective responsibility. He dissolved the senate, the second chamber of the Iranian parliament, and shut down the Majlis, the lower house. He suspended a general election before all the seats had been decided and chose to rule with absolute power. He disbanded the high council of national currency and dismissed the supreme court. During much of his tenure, Tehran lived under a curfew while hundreds of his opponents were imprisoned. Toward the end of his premiership, almost all of his friends and allies had broken with him. Some even wrote to the secretary general of the United Nations to intervene to end Mossadegh’s dictatorship. But was Mossadegh a man of the people, as de Bellaigue portrays him? Again, the author’s own account provides a different picture. A landowning prince and the great-great-grandson of a Qajar king, Mossadegh belonged to the so-called thousand families who owned Iran. He and all his children were able to undertake expensive studies in Switzerland and France. The children had French nannies and, when they fell sick, were sent to Paris or Geneva for treatment. (De Bellaigue even insinuates that Mossadegh might have had a French sweetheart, although that is improbable.) On the one occasion when Mossadegh was sent to internal exile, he took with him a whole retinue, including his cook… As a model of patriotism, too, Mossadegh is unconvincing. According to his own memoirs, at the end of his law studies in Switzerland, he had decided to stay there and acquire Swiss citizenship. He changed his mind when he was told that he would have to wait ten years for that privilege. At the same time, Farmanfarma secured a “good post” for him in Iran, tempting him back home.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Myths of Mossadegh" https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/302213/myths-mossadegh/page/0/1, National Review (June 25, 2012).

Pain , Children , People , Family

“Hopefully things will work out where we become friends enough so that he gives me back my bullet.”

Billy Joe Shaver (1939) American singer-songwriter

Statement made by Shaver after being acquitted from aggravated assault charges.
Billy Joe Shaver: Outlaw Country's Real Deal (2014)

“My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

My Days Among the Dead Are Past http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1957.html, st. 1 (1818).

Past , Dead

“I am often astonished at well-meaning, spiritual people who advocate beaming light toward world leaders, who scold activists for expressing anger toward authorities or police, who define compassion as loving the enemy — but somehow lose sight of the need to love our friends, our allies, and those who suffer at the hands of the perpetrators. I really don't feel much call to beam love and light at Bush or Cheney or the directors of the International Monetary Fund. Whether or not they suffer from lack of love is beyond me. From my perspective, they suffer from an excess of power, and I feel called to take it away from them. Because I do love the child in Iraq, the woman in the favela, the eighteen-year-old recruit to the Marines who never dreamed he was signing up to bomb civilians. I can't love them, or myself and my community, effectively if I can't articulate the real differences in interests and agendas between "us" and "them"”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

between those who have too little social power and those who have too much.
Toward an Activist Spirituality (2003)

Love , People , World , Dreams

“Mr. Lévesque was saying that part of my name was Elliott and since Elliot was an English name, it was perfectly understandable that I was for the No side, because, really, you see, I was not as much of a Quebecer as those who are going to vote Yes. That, my dear friends, is what contempt is…. It means saying that the Quebecers on the No side are not as good Quebecers as the others and perhaps they have a drop or two of foreign blood, while the people on the Yes side have pure blood in their veins.… Of course my name is Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Yes, Elliott was my mother's name. It was the name borne by the Elliotts who came to Canada more than 200 years ago. It is the name of the Elliotts who, more than 100 years ago, settled in Saint-Gabriel de Brandon, where you can still see their graves in the cemetery. That is what the Elliotts are. My name is a Quebec name — but my name is a Canadian name also.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Speech in Paul Sauvé Arena, Montreal, Quebec, six days before the Quebec referendum on independence. (14 May 1980)

People , Understanding , Parting

“Abu Usayd Malik ibn Rabi'a as-Sa'idi said, "Once while we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, a man from the Banu Salama came up and asked, 'O Messenger of Allah, is there any devotion to my parents which I can show them after their death?' He said, 'Yes, praying for them, asking forgiveness for them, fulfilling their pledges after them, maintaining ties with relations which are only maintained through them, and honouring any friend of theirs."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

[Abu Dawud]
Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 343
Sunni Hadith

Death , Peace , Forgiveness , Parent

“Death did not come to my mother
Like an old friend.
She was a mother, and she must
Conceive him. Up and down the bed she fought crying
Help me, but death
Was a slow child
Heavy.”

Josephine Miles (1911–1985) American poet, academic

"Conception" (1974) st. 1–2; Collected Poems, University of Illinois Press, 1983

Death , Help , Cry

“Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you…. Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.”

Francis de Sales book Introduction to the Devout Life

Pt. 2, ch. 16
Introduction to the Devout Life (1609)

Angels , Help

“What! Think you that my flashes show me
Only in lightnings to excel?
Believe me, friends, you do not know me,
For I can thunder quite as well.”

Heinrich Heine Wartet nur

Wartet nur! [Only Wait!] in Poems for the Times ; also in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 262

Thinking

“Once in garden then in friends’ company,
Once in music and then in philosophy,
Once with family and then in silence,
Experience Brahman- Mankuthimma”

D. V. Gundappa (1887–1975) Indian writer

A Kagga {Quatrian) of Manku Thimmana Kagga in pages=191-92
The Wisdom Of Vasistha A Study On Laghu Yoga Vasistha From A Seeker`S Point Of View

Family , Music , Silence

“You are responsible for all of your successes, and the lack thereof. And that is the essential point that failure, your ever-faithful friend, wants to make: that your failure could not exist without you—without your stupidity, without your lies, without your mistakes, your uselessness, your lack of faith, your ineptitude, your unjustifiable confidence in your alleged abilities, you stupid loser—failure is your only friend. Failure is your only lover. Failure is your only hope.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

"Failure"
Lyrics, Failure (1998)

Stupidity , Faith , Hope , Confidence

“Doom very evenly! Do not doom one doom to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom one doom to your friend; another to your foe!”

Alfred the Great (849–899) King of Wessex

The Doom Book (c. 893 AD).

“Having traveled, having conceived, having hoped, having enlarged my love, having widened my sympathies, having come into contact with different races, different communities, different religions, different civilizations, friends, my vision is clear. I have no prejudice of race, creed, caste, or colour…. Until you students have acquired and mastered the spirit of brotherhood, do not believe it possible that you will ever cease to be sectarian… if I may use such word…. you will ever be national.”

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949

In a lecture she gave at age 24 to the young students, quoted in "Selected Letters, Gandhi -Sarojini Naidu Correspondence, Preface".
Poetry

Love , Religion , Hope , Travel

“Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

My Works and Days (1979)

Cars , Lovers , Forgetting

“Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction. He was bothered by the people who cheered him in neighboring villages, and he imagined that they were the same cheers they gave the enemy. Everywhere he met adolescents who looked at him with his own eyes, who spoke to him with his own voice, who greeted him with the same mistrust with which he greeted them, and who said they were his sons. He felt scattered about, multiplied, and more solitary than ever. He was convinced that his own officers were lying to him. He fought with the Duke of Marlborough. "The best friend a person has," he would say at that time, "is one who has just died."”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), p. 166

People , Imagination , Lying , Solitude

“No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A favourite has no friend!”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 6
On the Death of a Favourite Cat http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odfc (1747)

“Trust the friends of today as though they will be the enemies of tomorrow.”

Baltasar Gracián book The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Confiar de los amigos hoy como enemigos mañana.
Maxim 217 (p. 123)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

“No, my friend, Germany will not declare war on us [at this moment]. But in my opinion the European situation is such that a great armed conflict is inevitable at some time which I cannot foresee, and our duty is to prepare for the worst.”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

Letter to Georg Brandes (9 January 1906), quoted in David Robin Watson, Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), pp. 220-221.

War , Time

“I’m single and my entire youth was spent enjoying time with friends, but these times I’m trying to be more responsible and take more care and use my energy in cinema. It makes me happier.”

Javier Botet (1977) Spanish actor

Youth , Time

“Sometimes your friends take you ten steps backwards for every step you take forward. Sometimes misplaced loyalty ruins your destiny.”

Keshia Chante (1988) Canadian actor and musician

Official Website (2009)

Loyalty

“Pain is good, I'd say, when it's incidental to Love. In 'I give up my life for my friend' it is my friend, not my death, that matters. And sometimes I needn't give up my life for him, I can live for him, and with him, and the power of the spirit is then equally manifested, I should think.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Letter 285, to George Thomson, 1 August 1931
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

Love , Life , Death , Pain

“You think that you exist because you’re unhappy. Other people exist merely as a function of their problems and spend all their time talking compulsively about their children, their wives and husbands, school, work, friends. They never stop to think: I’m here. I am the result of everything that happened and will happen, but I’m here. If I did something wrong, I can put it right or at least ask forgiveness. If I did something right, that leaves me happier and more connected with the now.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Children , People , School , Forgiveness

“Pompey had fought brilliantly and in the end routed Caesar's whole force… but either he was unable to or else he feared to push on. Caesar [said] to his friends: 'Today the enemy would have won, if they had had a commander who was a winner.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

The Life of Pompey

Fear

“With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 54.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Girl , Boy , Sleep , Heart

“Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house. We could not, so help us God, do otherwise…. The time is past when good men can remain silent, when obedience can segregate men from public risk, when the poor can die without defense.”

Daniel Berrigan (1921–2016) American Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet

"Meditation" written before burning the draft files at Local Board No. 33 and entered as evidence in the trial of the Catonsville Nine.

Men , God , Children , Time

“Not from the heavy soil
where blood and sex and oath
rule in their hallowed might,
where the earth itself,
guarding the primal consecrated order,
avenges wantonness and madness —
not from the heavy soil of the earth,
but from the spirit's choice and free desire, needing no oath of legal bond,
is friend bestowed on friend.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), The Friend

Sex , Madness

“In this sterile statecraft, centred on the politics of the maNDalayoni, one’s neighbour was always an enemy, and the enemy of an enemy always a friend! Hindu princes, therefore, failed to hang together in the face of a common calamity. In the event, they were hanged separately.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

“My father sent me, the same year, to school, but here I was not in my sphere; I hated the low and vulgar conduct of my school-fellows as much as the vulgar mode of correction of the masters. However, I selected some boys a little better educated for my daily companions, especially one of the name of Strauss, who unfortunately combined with his romantic ideas a great inclination to drink; we daily played truant, but nevertheless I applied myself in my private lessons with great eagerness and perseverance to the study of mathematics, history, &c., so that I contrived to ingratiate myself in the good opinion of my masters, who never missed me during the school hours, being always ready when called to my class. My best friend amongst the masters was a teacher of the French language, named Ferry) who professed secretly all the principles of freethinkers. He procured for me all the works of Voltaire, and other French freethinkers; and some time after, when I understood English, all the works of freethinkers of that nation. This was a pretty preparation for my confirmation, which was now at hand.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Hate , Education , School , History

“I've never felt any sense of competition with anybody, and we're all friends. We're all good friends.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Page 67.
Interview with Judy Harris (1982)

Sense

“When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and makes one Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return, and that this is not natural to them merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Letter to London merchant Peter Collinson (9 May 1753); reported in Labaree: "Papers of Benjamin Franklin", vol 4, pp 481-482.
Epistles

Life , Men , Pain , Sex

“My wife [Barbra] and I were walking with a friend, and we walked over to Jerry [Rubin] and his buddy… my wife said to him… ‘Hey, Jerry, I really dug your speech.’… ‘I did like the part about private property being pure s_.’ And Jerry got into it and said: ‘Yea, well property is s_ and after the revolution we will divide everything up. Like there won’t be anything private. My shirt will be your shirt and my car will be your car. And it will be one big commune.’…Barbra went on. ‘That’s a fantastic Indian head band you have on Jerry.’
Retort: ‘Yea. It was given to me by a friend.’
Barbra: ‘Why don’t you give it to me?’
Jerry: ‘Huh?’
Barbra: ‘You said that private property was s_ so why won’t you give me your head band.’
Well, Rubin looked astonished and blurted out: ‘But it’s my head band.”

Phillip Abbott Luce (1935–1998)

Source: The New Left Today: American Trojan Horse (1971), p. 127

Cars , Communication , Parting

“It is traditional conservatism…It is radical, because at the time when I took over we needed to be radical. I would not call it populist. I may say many of the things that I have said strike a chord in the hearts of ordinary people. Why? Because they are British. Because their character is independent. They do not like to be shoved around. Because they are prepared to take responsibility. Because they do expect to be loyal to their friends and loyal allies. You call it populist. I say it strikes a chord in the hearts of people. I know, because it struck a chord in my heart many many years ago.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Radio Interview for BBC Radio 3 (17 December 1985) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105934
Second term as Prime Minister

People , Time , Heart

“.. as I met with Mr. (Dunning there. There is something exclusive of the clear and deep understanding of that gentleman most exceedingly pleasing to me. He seems the only man who talks as Giardini plays, if you know what I mean; he puts no more motion than what goes to the real performance, which constitutes that ease and gentility peculiar to damned clever fellows... He is an amazing compact man in every respect.... and besides this neatness in outward appearance, his storeroom seems cleared of all French ornaments and gingerbread work, everything is simplicity and elegance and in its proper place, no disorder or confusion in the furniture.... Sober sense and great acuteness are marked very strong in his face.... but there is genius (in our sense of the word). (It) shines in all he says. In short, Mr. Jackson of Exeter [his friend], I begin to think there is something in the air of Devonshire that grows clever fellows. I could name four or five of you, superior to the product of any other county in England.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainsborough's letter to his friend William Jackson of Exeter, from Bath, 2 Sept. 1768; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 384 (Appendix A - Letter VII)
1755 - 1769

Understanding , Thinking , Sense , Strong

“Muhammad took the fort [of Rawar] and stayed there for two or three days. He put six thousand fighting men, who were in the fort, to the sword, and shot some with arrows. The other dependents and servants were taken prisoners, with their wives and children… When the number of the prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons, amongst whom thirty were the daughters of chiefs, and one of them was Rai Dahir's sister's daughter, whose name was Jaisiya. They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of the prisoners were forwarded in charge of Ka'ab, son of Mharak. When the head of Dahir, the women, and the property all reached Hajjaj, he prostrated himself before Allah, offered thanksgivings and praises… Hajjaj then forwarded the head, the umbrellas, and wealth, and the prisoners to Walid the Khalifa. When the Khalifa of the time had read the letter, he praised Almighty Allah. He sold some of those daughters of the chiefs, and some he granted as rewards. When he saw the daughter of Rai Dahir’s sister he was much struck with her beauty and charms, and began to bite his finger with astonishment…. It is said that after the conquest was effected and the affairs of the country were settled and the report of the conquest had reached Hajjaj, he sent a reply to the following effect. 'O my cousin! I received your life-inspiring letter. I was much pleased and overjoyed when it reached me. The events were recounted in an excellent and beautiful style, and I learnt that the ways and rules you follow are conformable to the Law. Except that you give protection to all, great and small alike, and make no difference between enemy and friend. God says, - Give no quarter to Infidels, but cut their throats. Then know that this is the command of the great God [Allah]. You shall not be too ready to grant protection, because it will prolong your work. After this, give no quarter to any enemy except to those who are of rank.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

The Chach Nama, in: Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume I, p. 172-173. Also partially quoted in B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)
Quotes from The Chach Nama

Life , Women , Men , God

“My concern with democracy is highly specific. It begins in observing the remarkable fact that, while democracy means a government accountable to the electorate, our rulers now make us accountable to them. Most Western governments hate me smoking, or eating the wrong kind of food, or hunting foxes, or drinking too much, and these are merely the surface disapprovals, the ones that provoke legislation or public campaigns. We also borrow too much money for our personal pleasures, and many of us are very bad parents. Ministers of state have been known to instruct us in elementary matters, such as the importance of reading stories to our children. Again, many of us have unsound views about people of other races, cultures, or religions, and the distribution of our friends does not always correspond, as governments think that it ought, to the cultural diversity of our society. We must face up to the grim fact that the rulers we elect are losing patience with us.”

Kenneth Minogue (1930–2013) Australian political theorist

Introduction, p. 2 ; quoted in: " Professor Kenneth Minogue http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10155678/Professor-Kenneth-Minogue.html" in telegraph.co.uk, 2 July 2013.
The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life

Money , Hate , Children , People

“I moved out to Santa Barbara to straighten out, supposedly, and I started using drugs, which I found were plentiful in Isla Vista, around the college campus — UCSB. And then I started rollicking around with all kinds of kids a lot younger than me. Anywhere from 15 to their 20s, but I was kind of in my late 20s. And, uh…I had fun, but I really didn't have anyone I particularly loved. And I still don't, except for loving friends, but I mean I haven't been in love with anyone in years and years. But I have a certain amount of faith that it'll come.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

On coming home to California in the late 1960's.
Edie : American Girl (1982)

Love , Faith

“Ibn Battutah while in Bengal says that a pretty kaniz (slave girl) could be had there for one gold dinar (or 10 silver tankahs). "I purchased at this price a very beautiful slave girl whose name was Ashura. A friend of mine also bought a young slave named Lulu for two gold coins."”

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Beauty , Girl

“We cannot have four more years apologizing to [America's] enemies and abandoning our friends. America needs to be strong for the world to be safe, and on the world stage, Donald Trump will lead from strength.”

Mike Pence (1959) 48th Vice President of the United States

Excerpt from his vice presidential acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention — https://fox59.com/2016/07/21/we-like-mike-full-transcript-of-gov-pences-vp-acceptance-speech/ (July 21, 2016)
Trump/Pence 2016 Presidential Campaign

World , Strong

“Life after all is made up of eating and sleeping, of meeting and saying good-by to friends, of reunions and farewell parties, of tears and laughter, of having a haircut once in two weeks, of watering a potted flower and watching one’s neighbor fall off his roof.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 202

Life , Flowers , Tear , Laughter

“Love is of the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet it is more than the end of the rainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs the beauty that arches across the sky on a stormy day. Love is the security for which children weep, the desire of youth, the cement that binds marriage, and the smoothing oil that prevents devastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, the sunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoy it in their associations with family, friends, church, and neighbors.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

And the Greatest of These Is Love, Tambuli, Aug 1984, 1.

Love , Life , Death , Marriage

“Living financially and economically on American charity, selling up the house to the Yanks when he won't pay any more charity out. Are you content to be occupied and protected by American aeroplanes? Are you content to be in the position of an old woman, jipped by her young relations? You who were the greatest power on earth fifty years ago, and still can be! Why do I say, 'you still can be'? Because, my friends, I know you, I know the British people! I know that twice in my lifetime in the world war I fought in, in the world war the younger men fought in. We the British have put our effort, our energy of valor, of heroism, unequalled in the history of mankind.”

Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) British politician; founder of the British Union of Fascists

Speech on 21 Novembver, 1960. http://www.oswaldmosley.com/audio/300million.m3u

Men , War , People , World

“To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely upon that turning-point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point. And these three conditions for raising the question of insurrection distinguish Marxism from Blanquism.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 22–27.
Collected Works

People , History , Question , Success

“Hail! great incendiary poets, you Futurist friends!.. Hail! Paolo Buzzi, Federico de Maria, Enrico Cavacchioli, Corrado Govoni, Libero Altomare! Let's flee the city of Paralysis, devastate Gout, and lay the great military Railroad along the flanks of Gorisankar, summit of the world!
We left the city with firm and nimble strides, as if dancing in our desire to find everywhere obstacles to overcome. Around us, and within our hearts, the immense intoxication of the old European sun as it swayed between wine-colored clouds... That sun struck us in the face with its great torch of flaming purple, then flared out, vomiting itself into the infinite.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

1900's, Let's Murder the Moonlight!' (1909)
Source: Poggi, Christine, and Laura Wittman, eds. Futurism: An Anthology. Yale University Press, 2009. p. 54: Lead paragraph

World , Color , Wine , Sun

“Jews are one of the few ethnic groups where learning is equivalent to praising God, which brings results. One Jewish Nobel Prize winner, when asked where his passion for science came from, explained that when his friends were returning home, they were asked what the teacher was asking about today. Me, said the Nobel Prize winner, mother asked: What did you ask the teacher today? He was taught to ask, not to answer.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Borejza, Tomasz (January 2018): Trochę bakterii nie zaszkodzi https://www.tygodnikprzeglad.pl/troche-bakterii-zaszkodzi/. Przegląd (4/2018): pp. 54–55.

God , Home , Learning , Teachers

“The Mao quote is one I picked up from the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater from something I read in the late 1980s, so I hope I don't get my progressive friends mad at me. The use of the phrase 'favorite political philosophers' was intended as irony, but clearly the effort fell flat -- at least with a certain Fox commentator whose sense of irony may be missing.”

Anita Dunn (1958) American political strategist

CNN interview, October 16, 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/16/beck.dunn/index.html

Hope , Quotes , Sense , Effort

“Ah! Women... I met one yesterday on the Pont de l'Europe [in Paris, circa 1881 - Manet was walking through the city frequently with his friend Antonin Proust, but then already more or less cripple because of his syphilis]. She was walking the way only a Parisienne knows how to walk, but with an extra something, even more assured. I'll remember that. There are some things that will always be engraved on my mind.”

Edouard Manet (1832–1883) French painter

quoted in Portrait of Manet by Himself and his Contemporaries, Courthion and Cailler; London, Cassell, 1960 p.97
1876 - 1883

Women , Way

“I want, if I may, to address a few words to the Opposition [Labour Party]… Whatever may be said of this Parliament in years to come and whatever may be said of the right hon. Gentleman's party, I believe that full tribute will be given to him and to his friends. As I and those on these benches who take part in the daily work of the House so well know, the Labour party as a whole have helped to keep the flag of Parliamentary government flying in the world through the difficult periods through which we have passed. They were nearly wiped out at the polls. Coming back with 50 Members, with hardly a man among them with experience of government, many would have thrown their hands in. But from the first day the right hon. Gentleman led his party in this House, they have taken their part as His Majesty's Opposition—and none but those who have been through the mill in opposition know what the day-to-day work is—with no Civil Service behind them, they have equipped themselves for debate after debate and held their own and put their case. I want to say that partly because I think it is due, and partly because I know that they, as I do, stand in their heart of hearts for our Constitution and for our free Parliament, and that has been preserved in the world against all difficulties and against all dangers.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1935/may/22/defence-policy in the House of Commons (22 May 1935). This speech reduced the Labour leader George Lansbury to tears (Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters. 1931-1950 (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 149.)
1935

World , Thinking , Help , Heart

“our Western European friends, who are tired of enlargement, must frankly admit that there will be no peace in Europe without the full EU integration of the Balkans. We must therefore enlarge the European Union, and must first of all admit the key state, Serbia”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Speech at the 28th Bálványos Summer Open University and Student Camp https://visegradpost.com/en/2017/07/24/full-speech-of-v-orban-will-europe-belong-to-europeans/, 22 July 2017, Tusnádfürdő

Peace

“Glee! the great storm is over!
Four have recovered the land;
Forty gone down together
Into the boiling sand.Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls,—
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, “But the forty?
Did they come back no more?”Then a silence suffuses the story,
And a softness the teller’s eye;
And the children no
further question,
And only the waves reply.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 5
Collected Poems (1993)

Children , Soul , Question , Silence

“First: my Friend planted a Row of Indian corn that was Coloured Red and Blue; the rest of the Field being planted with corn of the yellow, which is the most usual color. To the Windward side, this Red and Blue Row, so infected Three or Four whole Rows, as to communicate the same Colour unto them; and part of ye Fifth and some of ye Sixth. But to the Leeward Side, no less than Seven or Eight Rows, had ye same Colour communicated unto them; and some small Impressions were made on those that were yet further off.”

Cotton Mather (1663–1728) American religious minister and scientific writer

As quoted in Zirkle, Conway (1935), The beginnings of plant hybridization p. 105

Color , Communication , Parting

“If none of us ever read a book that was "dangerous," had a friend who was "different," or joined an organization that advocated "change," we would all be just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

Speech to his staff (1954)

People , Books , Change , Reading

“Home plays a very small role in the group activities of the corner boy. Except when he eats, sleeps, or is sick, he is rarely at home, and his friends always go to his corner first when they want to find him. Even the corner boy's name indicates the dominant importance of the gang in his activities. It is possible to associate with a group of men for months and never discover the family names of more than a few of them. Most are known by nicknames attached to them bv the group. Furthermore, it is easy to overlook the distinction between married and single men. The married man regularly sets aside one evening a week to take out his wife. There are other occasions when they go out together and entertain together, and some corner boys devote more attention to their wives than others, but, married or single, the corner boy can be found on his corner almost every night of the week.”

William Foote Whyte book Street Corner Society

Source: Street Corner Society, 1943, pp. 255-63, as cited in: Mercer (1958, p. 35-36)

Men , Family , Home , Boy

“"I am trying to trust," said one to me this past week, who had heard the earth falling on the casket which held the cold form of the dearest human friend, " I am trying to trust," and so I have seen a bird with a broken wing trying to fly. When the heart is broken, all our trying will only increase our pain and unrest. But if, instead of trying to trust, we will press closer to the Comforter, and lean our weary heads upon His sufficient grace, the trust will come without our trying, and the promised "perfect peace" will calm every troubled wave of sorrow.”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 600.

Pain , Peace , Bird , Past

“The work in question, painting the peasants, is such laborious work that the extremely weak would never even embark on it. And I have at least embarked on it... And I've grasped some solid and useful things in drawing and in painting, more firmly than you think, my dear friend. But I keep on making what I can't do yet in order to learn to be able to do it... We have in common with each other that we seek our subjects in the heart of the people, and then we have in common a need — either as an objective or as a means — to take our studies from reality.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to Anthon van Rappard, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, September 1885, in 'Van Gogh Letters' http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let528/letter.html
1880s, 1885

People , Question , Thinking , Reality

“To discover evil in a new friend is to most people only an additional experience”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Desperate Remedies (1871), ch. 1

People , Evil

“Our triumphs seem hollow unless we have friends to share them, and our failures are made bearable by their understanding.”

James Rachels book The Elements of Moral Philosophy

The Elements of Moral Philosophy (1999), p. 183

Failure , Understanding

“It is well-known that the friend of a conqueror is but the last victim.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation and Empire (1952), Chapter 22 “Death on Neotrantor”

“We are obliged to hear all that witnesses have to say; but it is a canticle of Courts of justice that witnesses non numerentur sed ponderentur: they are not to be numbered but weighed. It is the nature of the human mind, it is the perfection of the human heart, to serve a friend in distress; but in doing so, a man should not transgress the higher calls of religion and morality, the obligations of an oath. We are not monks and recluses, as was said in another place,1 but come from a class in society that I hope and believe gives us opportunities of seeing as much of the world, and that has as much virtue amongst its members as any other, however elevated.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Rex v. Rusby (1800), Peake's N. P. Ca. 193.

World , Religion , Justice , Hope

“My friends, the time for action is upon us. The enemies of justice wants you to think of Dr. King as only a civil rights leader, but he had a much broader agenda. He was a tireless crusader for the rights of the poor, for an end to the war in Vietnam long before it was popular to take that stand, and for the rights of workers everywhere.
Many people find it convenient to forget that Martin was murdered while supporting a desperate strike on that tragic day in Memphis, Tennessee. He died while fighting for the rights of sanitation workers.
Dr. King's dedication to the rights of the workers who are so often exploited by the forces of greed has profoundly touched my life and guided my struggle.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

Lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1990)

Life , War , People , Justice

“Trembling I sit day and night, my friends are astonish’d at me.
Yet they forgive my wanderings, I rest not from my great task!
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God. the Human Imagination”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: 1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 1, plate 5, lines 16-20 The Words of Blake

God , World , Imagination , Forgiveness

“A friend is worth all hazards we can run.”

Edward Young Night-Thoughts

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 571.

“If Peter Mandelson has an historical parallel, it is Robespierre, the architect of the Terror. Without his zeal and cool passion for the right of the French people, the ancien regime would almost certainly have reasserted itself in some way. His defence of the ideals of the revolution was absolute and unmoving. It won him no friends, and eventually swallowed him. It would be a tragedy for Labour if it were to do the same to the architect of its own revolution.”

Trevor Phillips (1953) British television producer

The Independent, 30 August 1997

People , Way , Passion

“Suppose you have two friends, James and Joanna, who are becoming increasingly fond of each other. At some point you realize that in their hearts they both have made a commitment to spending the rest of their lives together. But James has not yet admitted this to himself, or declared himself to Joanna. What is holding him back is a certain exaggerated trust in his own rationality, preventing him from acknowledging the validity of any impulse in himself he cannot completely understand. You are sure that once he comes to see how misplaced this trust is, he will realize that he has in fact been committed to a life with Joanna for some time and this commitment has been controlling the way he already lives his life and his decisions about how to spend his time and devote his energies. Now does James believe he is going to get married to Joanna? You are not clear what to say. If you ask him to profess such a belief, he will probably say he does not know, one way or the other. But his life-choices indicate the condition of his heart, and in that sense he does already have the belief. Another thing you do not know is how things are actually going to turn out for James. It all depends on which of the two dispositions prevails, his love for Joanna or his pride in his intellect.”

John E. Hare (1949) British philosopher

Source: "Kant on the Rational Instability of Atheism" (2006), pp. 63-64

Love , Life , Way , Understanding

“Sharpe, Lossow suspected, often got what he wanted, but the achievements never seemed to satisfy. His friend, the German decided, was like a man who, searching for a crock of gold, found ten and rejected them all because the pots were the wrong shape.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Captain Lossow, King's German Legion, p. 22
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

Search

“In social situations I still feel scared. My best friend and husband give me the freedom to be myself.”

Susannah Constantine (1962) British fashion designer and journalist

As quoted in "Retail therapists" by Fiona Neill in The Times (14 July 2007)

Feeling , Freedom

“Amos Regev, the editor-[in-chief] of Israel HaYom, is a personal friend and my conversations with him are not within the framework of my job.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

Response to an FOI request by Haaretz on ties between Netanyahu and the management of Israel's largest newspaper (11 June 2015) http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.660914
2010s, 2015

Personality

“As an adult, I think I wanna be living in New York City and help a lot of homeless people and try to become vegan and maybe be a band with some good friends and be making a living and be happy with how much money I have.”

Rachel Trachtenburg (1993) American musician

Rachel on her adult goals.
Off & On Broadway documentary (2006)

Money , People , Thinking , Help

“This is what my friend said to me; he said "You know what I like? Mashed potatoes." It's like, "Dude. you gotta give me time to guess. If you're gonna quiz me, you must insert a pause in there."”

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

Strategic Grill Locations

Time

“And yet I find in the majority judgement a fatal innocence… The judgement quotes the proclamations from the Rig, Yajur and Atharva Vedas - about all human beings being one, about their being the children of the same Mother-Earth, about the yearnings that all of use be friends. But it does not note that less than a mile from its building volumes upon volumes of fatwas are being sold and distributed which exhort Muslims never to trust Kafirs, never to allow them into their confidence; which tell them that their first duty and allegiance is to their religion and not to sundry laws… It is not Gandhiji who needs to be convinced that Ishwar and Allah ar one. It is not Guru Gobind Singh who needs to be convinced that mandir and masjid, Puran and Quran are one. The ones who need to be convinced that they are one - say, the ulema, or the Shahi Iman…”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

have it as an article of faith that they are not one.
Arun Shourie in: India., & Dasgupta, S. (1995). The Ayodhya reference: The Supreme Court judgement and commentaries. p. 171-3

Children , Faith , Religion , Law

“Each episode follows an unbelievably spoiled rich and tiny sod as they prepare to throw a despicably opulent coming of age party for themselves and their squealing shitcake friends.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

Screenwipe

Age

“When all of your friends are getting pregnant, you start thinking about it. But for Amy and I, show business is our baby.”

Will Arnett (1970) Canadian actor

"The Wit & Wisdom of Will Arnett," Playboy Magazine (March 29, 2007) http://blutharnett.blogspot.com/search/label/Playboy%20Magazine
2007

Business , Thinking , Baby

“Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a friend.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

The Epitaph, St. 2
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Soul , Tear , Sincerity

“I often was asked questions by my British friends which caught me flat footed. Trying to justify the North Korean system when, deep down, I knew their concerns were fair and legitimate.”

Thae Yong-ho (1961) former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea

Remarks to the U.S. Congress (November 2017)

Question

“Over the coming months, I'll receive multiple treatments, I'll lose my hair, trim down a bit, but I will not stop working to change Maryland for the better. I'll be working hard, and making the decisions the people of this state elected me to make. … With my faith, family, and friends, I know that I won't just beat this disease but I will be a better and stronger person and governor on the other side.”

Larry Hogan (1956) American politician

" Full Remarks: Governor Larry Hogan Announces Cancer Diagnosis http://governor.maryland.gov/2015/06/22/full-remarks-governor-larry-hogan-announces-cancer-diagnosis/"(22 June 2015)

People , Disease , Family , Faith

“But all my life though, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise. I saw in later life that this spirit was an essential part of Satyagraha. It has often meant endangering my life and incurring the displeasure of friends. But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom.”

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

Part II, Chapter 18, Colour Bar
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)

Life , Truth , Beauty , Parting

“Whene’er a man is quartered at a friend’s, if he but stay three days, his company they will grow weary of. (translator Thornton)”
Hospes nullus tam in amici hospitium divorti potest, quin, ubi triduum continuum fuerit, jam odiosis siet.

Plautus Miles Gloriosus

Miles Gloriosus, Act III, scene 1, line 146.
Variant translation: No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a nuisance after three days. (translator unknown)
Miles Gloriosus (The Swaggering Soldier)

“My professional work joints with intellectual play, with great passion. But I like to read, I'm interested in philosophy, religion and history. And I love dogs! Now I have two friends that take me out for a walk every day.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Bętkowska, Teresa (August–September 2010). "Mistrz niszowej dyscypliny" http://www2.almamater.uj.edu.pl/126/17.pdf (PDF). Alma Mater (in Polish). Kraków: Jagiellonian University (126–127): pp. 41–46.

Love , Religion , Dogs , History

“Do we not hear voices, gentle and great, and some of them like the voices of departed friends,— do we not hear them saying to us, "Come up hither?"”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 310.

Quotes about friend page 43

Quotes about friend
page 43