Quotations about Friendship

One true friend adds more to our happiness than a thousand enemies add to our unhappiness. ~Marie Dubsky, Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916), translated by Mrs Annis Lee Wister, 1882

A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be. ~Douglas Pagels

Most of us don’t need a psychiatric therapist as much as a friend to be silly with. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

Friendship isn’t a big thing — it’s a million little things. ~Author Unknown

Friendship is like a rainbow between two hearts. ~Author unknown

A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world. ~Leo Buscaglia

Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty. ~Sicilian Proverb

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend. ~Aristotle

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. ~Albert Schweitzer

A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad. ~Arnold H. Glasgow

The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Notebook, 1927

A good friend is cheaper than therapy. ~Author Unknown

If a friend is in trouble, don’t annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it. ~Edgar Watson Howe

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend. ~Henry David Thoreau

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down. ~Arnold Glasow

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored and sorrows end.

~William Shakespeare

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. ~Elisabeth Foley

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. ~William Blake

A friend is the only person you will let into the house when you are Turning Out Drawers. ~Pam Brown

One’s friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human. ~George Santayana

A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails. ~Donna Roberts

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair. ~Samuel Johnson

Keep your friendships in repair, and then see if you do not find your horizon broadened, your life sweetened, and the weary weight of this sad old world lightened. ~Silas X. Floyd (1869–1923), "Keeping Friendship In Repair," Floyd's Flowers: or, Duty and Beauty for Colored Children, 1905

True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable. ~Dave Tyson Gentry

Real friends are those who, when you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel that you've done a permanent job. ~Erwin T. Randall, quoted in The Reader's Digest, 1955

I ask of life only that which makes it worth living: the love of friends. ~Justin Regier, January 2012 entry to The Quote Garden create your own quote contest on Twitter

Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer. ~Author Unknown

A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out. ~Grace Pulpit

One doesn’t know, till one is a bit at odds with the world, how much one’s friends who believe in one rather generously, mean to one. ~D.H. Lawrence

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. ~C.S. Lewis

Constant use will not wear ragged the fabric of friendship. ~Dorothy Parker

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends. ~Virginia Woolf

There are big ships and small ships. But the best ship of all is friendship. ~Author Unknown

The best kind of friend is the one you could sit on a porch with, never saying a word, and walk away feeling like that was the best conversation you’ve had. ~Author Unknown

I like friends who, when you tell them you need a moment alone, know enough not to stray too far. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

The language of friendship is not words but meanings. ~Henry David Thoreau

A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg even if you are half-cracked. ~Author Unknown

Friends are kisses blown to us by angels. ~Author Unknown

It’s important to our friends to believe that we are unreservedly frank with them, and important to the friendship that we are not. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

It is the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter. ~Marlene Dietrich

She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind. ~Toni Morrison, Beloved

Cherish the friend who tells you a harsh truth, wanting ten times more to tell you a loving lie. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

Friends can be said to "fall in like" with as profound a thud as romantic partners fall in love. ~Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend. ~Plautus

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give. ~George MacDonald

A real friend is someone who would feel loss if you jumped on a train, or in front of one. ~Author Unknown

Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts. ~Margaret Lee Runbeck, Answer Without Ceasing

Love is like the wild-rose briar;

Friendship is like the holly-tree.

The holly is dark when the rose briar blooms,

But which will bloom most constantly?

~Emily Brontë

Our most difficult task as a friend is to offer understanding when we don’t understand. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

As a friend, you first give your understanding, then you try to understand. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

A true friend is forever a friend. ~George MacDonald, The Marquis of Lossie

The function of a friend is not to have a function. ~Detlef Cordes, detlefcordes.org

The friend within the man is that part of him which belongs to you and opens to you a door which never, perhaps, is opened to another. Such a friend is true, and all he says is true; and he loves you even if he hates you in other mansions of his heart. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French by Stuart Gilbert

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory will swell when again touched as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature. ~Abraham Lincoln

Yes we are [friends] and I do like to pass the day with you in serious and inconsequential chatter. I wouldn’t mind washing up beside you, dusting beside you, reading the back half of the paper while you read the front. We are friends and I would miss you, do miss you and think of you very often. I don’t want to lose this happy space where I have found someone who is smart and easy and doesn’t bother to check her diary when we arrange to meet. ~Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body, 1992

It takes a long time to grow an old friend. ~John Leonard

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friends are divided into two great classes: Those you need, and those who need you. ~Washington Star, quoted in For the Gaiety of Nations: Fun and Philosophy from the American Newspaper Humorists compiled by Wallace Rice, 1909

True friends stab you in the front. ~Oscar Wilde

Strangers are just friends waiting to happen. ~Rod McKuen, Looking for a Friend (Thank you, Carolyn)

It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us, as the confidence of their help. ~Epicurus

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. ~Henri Nouwen

You always think you could have done more. That’s why you need a friend — to tell you you did all you could. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

Before borrowing money from a friend, decide which you need most. ~American Proverb

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. ~William Blake

All you would have your friend to you, that must you be to him—and more; for there can be no thought of balancing of favors given by friend to friend; the obligations reach beyond; nor is there any selfishness, save selfishness for him. Full friendship is the selfishness and the unselfishness, at once, of two, bound into twinship fair of soul and spirit. Seek you then for friend one whom you understand down to the depths, up to the heights, of being, whose soul meets yours with the same understanding. Only so can you, can he, attain that sympathy which, growing with your intercourse, at last reaches beyond mere understanding, gains the other's thought and feeling, though no word be spoken, knows from the eyes of truth, and stands to aid in every project nobly true as ready as to speak against the false: Then may you say, "I have, he has, a friend!" ~Wallace Rice, To My Friend, 1914

The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Southern Mail, 1929, translated from French by Curtis Cate

A true friend reaches for your hand and touches your heart. ~Attributed to Heather Pryor

A healing friend is a kindred spirit who says "yeah, I know what you mean!" while pouring your cup of tea; sees your uniqueness; challenges you with love, humor, and honesty, to live your dreams; finds humor, song, dance, and magic hidden in your problems; delights in your surprises; accepts both ups & downs; helps you, then asks for help, too; encourages you to formulate your next steps, then goes the first step with you. ~Kristina Turner, The Self-Healing Cookbook, 2002, originally published 1987  [a little altered —tεᖇᖇ¡·g]

We are each the star of our own situation comedy, and, with luck, the screwball friend in somebody else’s. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever. ~George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons, 2011

Friendship is a sheltering tree. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

We are keenly aware of the faults of our friends, but if they like us enough it doesn’t matter. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

A bosom friend — an intimate friend, you know — a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul. ~L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles. ~Tim Cahill

Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends. ~Shirley MacLaine

What do we ask of friendship except to be taken for what we pretend to be — and without having to pretend. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

Friendship is Love, without his wings. ~Lord Byron, L’Amitié est l’Amour sans Ailes

But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safewith a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Maria Craik, A Life for a Life, "Chapter XVI: Her Story," 1859

A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably. ~William Penn

We are the captains of our own ships sailing the sea of life, but in times of a stormy weather, you will discover true friends when they don’t hesitate to be a lighthouse. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine. ~Thomas Jefferson

A good friend is a connection to life — a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. ~Lois Wyse

The best time to make friends is before you need them. ~Ethel Barrymore

I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing. ~Katherine Mansfield

A friend can tell you things you don’t want to tell yourself. ~Frances Ward Weller

The strongest marriage is between two who seek the same God, the strongest friendship between two who flee the same devil. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

It’s not how many friends you can count, it’s how many of those you can count on. ~Anthony Liccione

There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound. ~Diana Cortes

It is a good thing to be rich, and it is a good thing to be strong, but it is a better thing to be loved of many friends. ~Euripides

Just what is a friend; do you ask of me?

      I think it is one who will ever be

      Loyal and loving, what e'er may betide;

      One who will always stand close by our side

With faith and trust and a fond, cheery smile

      Of understanding for us all the while;

      One who is ready to give us a hand

      As we struggle on through the shifting sands

Of time: an honest, sincere friend is one

      Who will share our sorrows, our joys, our fun;

      And we know in him we can ever trust

      Till the time our bodies return to dust!

~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "A Friend" (1940s)

If you’re alone, I’ll be your shadow. If you want to cry, I’ll be your shoulder. If you want a hug, I’ll be your pillow. If you need to be happy, I’ll be your smile. But anytime you need a friend, I’ll just be me. ~Author Unknown

A friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should. ~Author Unknown

The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away. ~Barbara Kingsolver

Probably no man ever had a friend that he did not dislike a little. ~E.W. Howe

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul. ~Edith Wharton

I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

’Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his. ~Benjamin Franklin

The best rule of friendship is to keep your heart a little softer than your head. ~Author Unknown

The Friend asks no return but that his Friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other’s hopes. They are kind to each other’s dreams. ~Henry David Thoreau

If it’s very painful for you to criticize your friends — you’re safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that’s the time to hold your tongue. ~Alice Duer Miller

It is when there is nothing you can say or do to help that a friend needs you the most. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive. ~Anaïs Nin

Friends are relatives you make for yourself. ~Eustache Deschamps

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, for in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. ~Khalil Gibran

Many a person has held close, throughout their entire lives, two friends that always remained strange to one another, because one of them attracted by virtue of similarity, the other by difference. ~Emil Ludwig

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Journals, 1843

Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Mighty proud I am that I am able to have a spare bed for my friends. ~Samuel Pepys

A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hold a true friend with both your hands. ~Nigerian Proverb

Yes’m, old friends is always best, ’less you can catch a new one that’s fit to make an old one out of. ~Sarah Orne Jewett

I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world. ~Blaise Pascal

If I had to sum up Friendship in one word, it would be Comfort. ~Terri Guillemets

Friendship is Love with jewels on, but without either flowers or veil. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

Say what you want about aging, it’s still the only way to have old friends. ~iBne Rasool, Tech Villa

Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them. ~Francesco Guicciardini

The best way to mend a broken heart is time and girlfriends. ~Gwyneth Paltrow

Friendship is one mind in two bodies. ~Mencius

Friendship needs no words — it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness. ~Dag Hammarskjold

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. ~Aristotle

I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world. ~Thomas A. Edison

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better. ~Plutarch

The essence of true friendship is to make allowance for another’s little lapses. ~David Storey

How few friends would remain friends if each could see the sentiments of the other in their entirety. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908

Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone — but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming. ~William Hazlitt

It’s no good trying to keep up old friendships. It’s painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it. ~Somerset Maugham

Friends are like walls. Sometimes you lean on them, and sometimes it’s good just knowing they are there. ~Author Unknown

In my friend, I find a second self. ~Isabel Norton

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson