A friend should be one
in whose understanding and virtue
we can equally confide,
and whose opinion we can value at
for its justness and its sincerity.
* * * * *
A friendship can weather
most things and thrive in thin soil;
but it needs a little much
of letters and phone calls and small,
silly presents every so often -
just to save it from drying out completely.
* * * * *
A friendship founded on business
is better than a business founded on friendship.
* * * * *
A true friend never gets in your way
unless you happen to be going down.
* * * * *
An insincere and evil friend
is more to be feared than a wild beast;
a wild beast may wound your body,
but an evil friend will wound your mind.
* * * * *
Be courteous to all,
but intimate with few,
and let those few be well tried
before you give them your confidence.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
Don't walk behind me;
I may not lead.
Don't walk in front of me;
I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.
* * * * *
Friendship is held to be the
severest test of character.
It is easy, we think, to be loyal
to a family and clan,
whose blood is in your own veins.
* * * * *
Friendship is unnecessary,
like philosophy, like art...
It has no survival value;
rather it is one of those things
that give value to survival.
* * * * *
Friendship needs no words -
it is solitude delivered
from the anguish of loneliness.
* * * * *
Friendship is not something
you learn in school.
But if you haven't learned
the meaning of friendship,
you really haven't learned anything.
* * * * *
I always felt that the great high privilege,
relief and comfort of friendship
was that one had to explain nothing.
* * * * *
I don't need a friend
who changes when I change
and who nods when I nod;
my shadow does that much better.
* * * * *
I have friends in overalls
whose friendship I would not swap
for the favor of the kings of the world.
* * * * *
I value the friend who for me
finds time on his calendar,
but I cherish the friends
who for me does not consult his calendar.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
It is important to our friends
to believe that we are
unreservedly frank with them,
and important to friendship that we are not.
* * * * *
It is not so much our friends' help
that helps us, as the confidence of their help.
* * * * *
Let us be grateful to people
who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners
who make our souls blossom.
* * * * *
Lots of people want
to ride with you in the limo,
but what you want is someone
who will take the bus with you
when the limo breaks down.
* * * * *
Many 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.
* * * * *
Nothing so fortifies a friendship
as a belief on the part
of one friend that
he is superior to the other
* * * * *
Of all things which wisdom provides
to make life entirely happy,
much the greatest
in the possession of friendship.
* * * * *
One's friends are the part
of the human race
with which one can be human.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
Silences make the real conversations
between friends.
Not the saying
but the never needing
to say is what counts.
* * * * *
Since there are nothing
so well worth having as friends,
never lose a chance to make them. * * * * *
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 healing, not curing...
that is a friend who cares.
* * * * *
The real test of friendship is:
can you literally do nothing
with the other person?
Can you enjoy those moments
of life that are utterly simple?
* * * * *
There is nothing on this earth
more to be prized than true friendship.
* * * * *
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
When we honestly ask ourselves
which person in our lives
means 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.
* * * * *
When you choose your friends,
don't be short-changed
by choosing personality over character.
* * * * *
