A mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and when it is over, anything but friends.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
Are you willing to work sixteen hours a day? Rich people are. Are you willing to work seven days a week and five up most of your weekends? Rich people are. Are you willing to sacrifice seeing your family, your friends, and give up your recreations and hobbies? Rich people are. Are you willing to risk all your time, energy and start-up capital with no guarantee of returns? Rich people are.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
When 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.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
Friends make pretence of following to the grave but before one is in it, their minds are turned and making the best of their way back to life and living people and things they understand.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Love is blind, but friendship closes its eyes.
—Unknown
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
Friendship will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.
—Robert Wilson Lynd (1879–1949) Irish Essayist, Critic
That friendship will not continue to the end which is begun for an end.
—Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English Religious Poet
Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity.
—Chilon of Sparta (c.556 BCE) Spartan Magistrate
As the yellow gold is tried in fire, so the faith of friendship must be seen in adversity.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
An ounce of blood is worth more than a pound of friendship.
—Spanish Proverb
So long as we are loved by others I should say that we are almost indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
When you realize that suffering and discomfort are the call to inquiry, you may actually begin to look forward to uncomfortable feelings. You may even experience them as friends coming to show you what you have not yet investigated thoroughly enough.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Friendship is a sheltering tree.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
If we listened to our intellect we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go in business because we’d be cynical: It’s gonna go wrong. Or She’s going to hurt me. Or, I’ve had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore … Well, that’s nonsense. You’re going to miss life. You’ve got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
For when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.
—Buddhist Teaching
Life has no blessing like a prudent friend.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides it’s evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island. To find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.
—Baltasar Gracian (1601–58) Spanish Scholar, Prose Writer
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Silence is a true friend who never betrays.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
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 (1803–82) American Philosopher
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American Head of State
He who has not the weakness of friendship has not the strength.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
In the adversity of our best friends we often find something that is not wholly displeasing to us.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State