Friendship quotes
2.5K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside friendship — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love."
"Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse."
"Friends are born, not made."
"The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?"
"When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain."
"Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love."
"I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails."
"Don't let a little dispute injure a great relationship."
"Genuine human friendship is on the basis of human affection, irrespective of your position. Therefore, the more you show concern about the welfare and rights of others, the more you are a genuine friend. The more you remain open and sincere, then ultimately more benefits will come to you. If you forget or do not bother about others, then eventually you will lose your own benefit."
"When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem."
"Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure."
"I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him."
"I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expect everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate good. . . . If we will take the good we find, . . . we shall have heaping measures. . . ."
"Almost every man we meet requires some civility; requires to be humored; - he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me."
"I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances."
"For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God."
"No man can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of his friend till he is unhappy."
"Job endured everything - until his friends came to comfort him, then he grew impatient."
"It's hard, but sometimes it is better to have no friends for a time than to have the wrong friends. The wrong group can lead you down all kinds of paths you really don't want to be on. And retracing your steps can be a long and hard journey"
"A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy, but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak, as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person."
