For Auld Land Syne A Book of Friendship by Ray Woodward
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Title: For Auld Lang Syne

Author: Ray Woodward

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For Auld Lang Syne

A Book Of Friendship

Selected by

RAY WOODWARD

Affectionately Dedicated to

My Father,

FRED E. WOODWARD.

INTRODUCTION

Friendship is essentially the same bond, whether it unites persons of
intellect and refined tastes, or those more unfortunate ones, who,
perhaps, have no conception of their mission in the world, or of their
duty to society. Its manifestations may be wholly different, but the two
friendships will have some points in common. In both instances the
friends are drawn close together and are united by that bond which has
been so beautifully written about throughout the ages.

The abstract theorizing of one philosopher can never satisfy the
individual in regard to the varied manifestations of friendship, and it
is therefore interesting and profitable to note what various writers
have said about this world-wide force under the varying conditions of
the past and the present. It would be a well-nigh hopeless task to
attempt to gather within the compass of a single volume all that has
been written about it. The present volume present some selections that
express in a measure what is implied by the word Friendship.

For Auld Lang Syne

It is a noble and great thing to cover the blemishes and to excuse the
failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his stains, and to
display his perfections; to bury his weaknesses in silence, but to
proclaim his virtues upon the housetop.

—_South_.

*

E’en as a traveller, meeting with the shade

Of some o’erhanging tree, awhile reposes,

Then leaves its shelter to pursue his way,

So men meet friends, then part with them forever.

—_Hitopadesa_.

*

A true friendship is as wise as it is tender.

—_Thoreau_.

*

As ships meet at sea—a moment together, when words of greeting must be
spoken, and then away upon the deep—so men meet in this world; and I
think we should cross no man’s path without hailing him, and if he
needs, giving him supplies.

—_H. W. Beecher_.

*

A friend is more necessary than either fire or water.

—_Proverbs_.

*

A long novitiate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship.

—_Lord Bolingbroke_.

*

A beloved friend does not fill one part of the soul, but, penetrating
the whole, becomes connected with all feeling.

—_Channing_.

*

A reverse of fortune is a mighty sifter of friendship. So is distance.

Go a little way out of town, and see how many people will take the
trouble to come to see you. Well, we must be patient and forbearing. It
is a question of intensity of need. Friendly relations depend upon
vicinity amongst other things, and there are degrees; but the best kind
of friendship has a way of bridging time and space for all that.

—_Haweis_.

*

A female friend, amiable, clever, and devoted, is a possession more
valuable than parks and palaces; and without such a muse few men can
succeed in life, none be contented.

—_Lord Beaconsfield_.

*

A true friend embraces our objects as his own. We feel another mind bent
on the same end, enjoying it, ensuring it, reflecting it, and delighting
in our devotion to it.

—_Channing_.

*

A pretended affection is not easily distinguished from a real one,
unless in seasons of distress. For adversity is to friendship what fire
is to gold—the only infallible test to discover the genuine from the
counterfeit. In all other cases they both have the same common marks.

—_Cicero_.

*

A little peaceful home bounds all my wants and wishes;

Add to this my book and friend—and this is happiness supreme.

—_Montaigne_.

*

A true friend is more precious to the soul than all which it inherits
beneath the sun.

—_Irving_.

*

A friend

Welded into our life is more to us

Than twice five-thousand kinsmen, one in blood.

—_Euripides_.

*

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the
fullness and swelling of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause
and induce. No receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you
may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and
whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift
or confession.

—_Bacon_.

*

Be true to thy friend. Never speak of his faults to another, to show thy
own discrimination; but open them all to him, with candor and true
gentleness; forgive all his errors and his sins, be they ever so many;
but do not excuse the slightest deviation from rectitude. Never forbear
to dissent from a false opinion, or a wrong practice, from mistaken
motives of kindness; nor seek thus to have thy own weaknesses sustained;
for these things cannot be done without injury to the soul.

—_Child_.

*

Be admonished not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons,
where no friendship can be.

—_Emerson_.

*

A day for toil, an hour for sport,

But for a friend life is too short.

—_Emerson_.

*

After a certain age a new friend is a wonder. There is the age of
blossoms and sweet budding green, the age of generous summer, the autumn
when the leaves drop, and then winter shivering and bare.

—_Thackeray_.

*

Bitter and unrelenting enemies often deserve better of us than those
friends whom we are inclined to regard as pleasant companions; the
former often tell us the truth, the latter never.

—_Cicero_.

*

Does friendship really go on to be more pain than pleasure? I doubt it,
for even in its deepest sorrows there is a joy which makes ordinary
pleasure a very poor, meaningless affair.

—_Unknown_.

*

Friendship does not spring up and grow great and become perfect all at
once, but requires time and the nourishment of thoughts.

—_Dante_.

*

Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not
sufficient for friendship, for friends do not live in harmony, merely,
as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for friends to feed and
clothe our bodies,—neighbors are kind enough for that,—but to do the
like office to our spirits. For this, few are rich enough, however well
disposed they may be.

—_Thoreau_.

*

A pure friendship inspires, cleanses, expands, and strengthens the soul.

—_Alger_.

*

A friend is he that loves, and he that is beloved.

—_Hobbe_.

*

Change, care, nor Time while life endure

Shall spoil our ancient friendship sure.

—_Lang_.

*

Every young man is the better for cherishing strong friendships with the
wise and good; and he whose soul is knit to one or more chosen
associates with whom he can sympathize in right aims and feelings, is
thereby the better armed against temptation and confirmed in paths of
virtue.

—_Carlyle_.

*

Believing hear, what you deserve to hear:

Your birthday, as my own, to me is dear.

Blest and distinguished days! which we should prize

The first, the kindest, bounty of the skies.

But yours gives most; for mine did only lend

Me to the world, yours gave to me a friend.

—_Martial_.

*

Choose for your friend him that is wise and good, and secret and just,
ingenious and honest, and in those things which have a latitude, use
your own liberty.

—_Taylor_.

*

Friendship is made up of esteem and pleasure; pity is composed of sorrow
and contempt: the mind may for some time fluctuate between them, but it
can never entertain both at once.

—_Goldsmith_.

*

Friends are much better tried in bad fortune than in good fortune.

—_Aristotle_.

*

Fellowship of souls does not consist in the proximity of persons. There
are millions who live in close personal contact—dwell under the same
roof, board at the same table, and work in the same shop—between whose
minds there is scarcely a point of contact, whose souls are as far
asunder as the poles; whilst, contrariwise, there are those separated by
oceans and continents, ay, by the mysterious gulf that divides time from
eternity, between whom there is a constant intercourse, a delightful
fellowship. In truth, we have often more communion with the distant than
the near.

—_Dr. Thomas_.

*

Friendship must live by faith and not by sight.

—_Eliot_.

*

Friends should not be chosen to flatter. The quality we should prize is
that rectitude which will shrink from no truth. Intimacies, which
increase vanity, destroy friendship.

—_Channing_.

*

Favors, and especially pecuniary ones, are generally fatal to
friendship; for our pride will ever prompt us to lower the value of the
gift by diminishing that of the donor. Ingratitude is an effort to
recover our own esteem by getting rid of our esteem for our benefactor,
whom we look upon as a sort of tooth-drawer, that has cured us of one
pain by inflicting another.

—_Smith_.

*

Friendship throws a greater lustre on prosperity, while it lightens
adversity by sharing in its griefs and anxieties.

—_Cicero_.

*

Friendship hath the skill and observation of the best physician; the
diligence and vigilance of the best nurse; and the tenderness and
patience of the best mother.

—_Lord Clarendon_.

*

Friendship! the precious gold of life

By age refined, yet ever new;

Tried in the crucible of time

It always rings of service true.

Friendship! the beauteous soul of life

Which gladdens youth and strengthens age;

May it our hearts and lives entwine

Together on life’s fleeting page.

—_Shaylor_.

*

Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which strengthens with the
setting sun of life.

—_La Fontaine_.

*

Friendship, love, and piety, ought to be handled with a sort of
mysterious secrecy; they ought to be spoken of only in the rare moments
of perfect confidence.

—_Novalis_.

*

Few men are calculated for that close connection which we distinguish by
the name of friendship, and we well know the difference between a friend
and an acquaintance.

—_Sterne_.

*

Friendship is the nearest thing we know to what religion is. God is
love. And to make religion akin to friendship is simply to give it the
highest expression conceivable by man.

—_Drummond_.

*

Friendship is the great chain of human society.

—_Howell_.

*

Friendship is an allay of our sorrows, the ease of our passions, the
discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our calamities, the
counsellor of our doubts, the charity of our minds, the emission of our
thoughts, the exercise and improvement of what we meditate.

—_Taylor_.

*

Friendship springs up from sources so subtile and undefinable, that it
cannot be forced into particular channels; and whenever the
attempt has been made, it has usually been unsuccessful.

—_Day_.

*

God wills that we have sorrows here,

And we will share it;

Whisper thy sorrow in my ear,

That I may also bear it.

If anywhere our trouble seems

To find an end,

‘Tis in the fairy land of dreams,

Or with a friend.

—_Tennyson_.

*

Friendship is a union of spirits, a marriage of hearts, and the bond
thereof virtue.

—_Penn_.

*

Friendship that makes the least noise is very often the most useful; for
which reason I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one.

—_Addison_.

*

Friendship, like love, is but a name

Unless to one you stint the flame.

The child, whom many fathers share,

Hath seldom known a father’s care.

‘Tis thus in friendships; who depends

On many, rarely finds a friend.

—_Gay_.

*

Friend is a word of royal tone;

Friend is a poem all alone.

—_From the Persian_.

*

Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible
tokens of your love. It is well worth while to learn how to win the
heart of man the right way. Force is of no use to make or preserve a
friend, who is an animal that is never caught and tamed but by kindness
and pleasure. Excite them by your civilities, and show them that you
desire nothing more than their satisfaction; oblige with all your soul
that friend who has made you a present of his own.

—_Socrates_.

*

He who gives pleasure, meets with it; kindness is the bond of
friendship, and the book of love; he who sows not, reaps not.

*

Friendship is the holiest of gifts,

God can bestow nothing more sacred upon us!

It enhances every joy, mitigates every pain.

Everyone can have a friend

Who himself knows how to be a friend.

—_Teidge_.

*

In this respect friendship is superior to relationship, because from
relationship benevolence can be withdrawn, and from friendship it
cannot; for with the withdrawal of benevolence the very name of
friendship is done away, while that of relationship remains.

—_Cicero_.

*

I want a warm and faithful friend,

To cheer the adverse hour;

Who ne’er to flatter will descend,

Nor bend the knee to power.

A friend to chide me when I’m wrong,

My inmost soul to see;

And that my friendship prove as strong

To him as his to me.

—_Adams_.

*

Friendship’s true laws are by this rule expressed,

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

—_Pope_.

*

Human spirits are only to be drawn together and held together by the
living bond of having found something in which they really do agree.

—_Greenwell_.

*

He has the substance of all bliss

To whom a virtuous friend is given:

So sweet harmonious friendship is,

Add but eternity, you’ll make it heaven.

—_Norris_.

*

He who wrongs his friend

Wrongs himself more and ever bears about

A silent court of justice in his breast.

—_Tennyson_.

*

Hearts only thrive on varied good,

And he who gathers from a host

Of friendly hearts his daily food,

Is the best friend that we can boast.

—_Holland_.

*

I exhort you to lay the foundations of virtue, without which friendship
cannot exist, in such a manner that, with this one exception, you may
consider that nothing in the world is more excellent than friendship.

—_Cicero_.

*

It is a beautiful thing to feel that our friends are God’s gifts to us.

Thinking of it has made me understand why we love and are loved,
sometimes when we cannot explain what causes the feeling. Feeling so
makes friendship such a sacred, holy thing!

—_Porter_.

*

If my brother, or kinsman, will be my friend, I ought to prefer him
before a stranger; or I show little duty or nature to my parents.

And as we ought to prefer our kindred in point of affection, so, too, in
point of charity, if equally needing and deserving.

—_Penn_.

*

It is equally impossible to forget our friends, and to make them answer
to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them
company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual
friends that we may go out and meet their ideal cousins!

—_Thoreau_.

*

I must feel pride in my friend’s accomplishments as if they were
mine—wild, delicate, throbbing property in his virtues. I feel as
warmly when he is praised as the lover when he hears applause of his
engaged maiden.

—_Emerson_.

*

In very many cases of friendship, or what passes for it, the old axiom
is reversed, and like clings to unlike more than to like.

—_Dickens_.

*

Hearts are linked to hearts by God. The friend on whose fidelity you
can count, whose success in life flushes your cheek with honest
satisfaction, whose triumphant career you have traced and read with a
heart throbbing almost as if it were a thing alive, for whose honor you
would answer as for your own; that friend, given to you by circumstances
over which you have no control, was God’s own gift.

—_Robertson_.

*

If thou neglect thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy
love to God.

—_Quarles_.

*

I cannot contentedly frame a prayer for myself in particular, without a
catalogue for my friends; nor request a happiness, wherein my sociable
disposition doth not desire the fellowship of my neighbor.

—_Browne_.

*

It’s an owercome sooth for age an’ youth

And it brooks wi’ nae denial,

That the dearest friends are the auldest friends

And the young are just on trial.

There’s a rival bauld wi’ young an’ auld

And it’s him that has bereft me;

For the surest friends are the auldest friends

And the maist o’ mine hae left me.

There are kind hearts still, for friends to fill

And fools to take and break them;

But the nearest friends are the auldest friends

And the grave’s the place to seek them.

—_Stevenson_.

*

God divided man into men that they might help each other.

—_Seneca_.

*

I sometimes hear my friends complain finely that I do not appreciate
their fineness. I shall not tell them whether I do or not. As if they
expected a vote of thanks for every fine thing which they uttered or
did! Who knows but it was finely appreciated? It may be that your
silence was the finer thing of the two…. In human intercourse the
tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when
silence is not understood. Then there can never be an explanation.

—_Thoreau_.

*

It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends.

—_Thackeray_.

*

It is not becoming to turn from friends in adversity, but then it is for
those who have basked in the sunshine of their prosperity to adhere to
them. No one was ever so foolish as to select the unfortunate for their
friends.

—_Lucanus_.

*

It is essential to friendship that there be no labor to pass for more
than we are, no effort, no anxiety to hide! If anything be concealed,
the constant intercourse of friends will discover it, and one discovery
will produce others. The idea that the heart has one secret fold
extinguishes affection.

—_Channing_.

*

Impatient and uncertain lovers think that they must say or do something
kind whenever they meet; they must never be cold. But they who are
friends do not do what they think they must, but what they must. Even
their friendship is, in one sense, a sublime phenomenon to them.

—_Thoreau_.

*

It is a good and safe rule to sojourn in many places, as if you meant to
spend your life there, never omitting an opportunity of doing a kindness
or speaking a true word or making a friend.

—_Ruskin_.

*

It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a
friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the
other. Why should I cumber myself with the poor fact that the receiver
is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall
wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the
reflecting planet…. It is thought a disgrace to love unrequited. But
the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited.

—_Emerson_.

*

In the cause of friendship brave all dangers.

—_Dickens_.

*

Kindness given and received aright and knitting two hearts into one is a
thing of heaven, as rare in this world as a perfect love; both are the
overflow of only very rare and beautiful souls.

—_Balzac_.

*

Kindred passions and pursuits are the natural groundwork of friendship.

Real friendship is of slow growth, and never thrives, unless ingrafted
upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit.

—_Chesterfield_.

*

Let this, therefore, be established as a primary law concerning
friendship, that we expect from our friends only what is honorable, and
for our friends’ sake do what is honorable; that we should not wait till
we are asked; that zeal be ever ready, and reluctance far from us.

—_Cicero_.

*

Let Friendship’s accents cheer our doubtful way,

And Love’s pure planet lend its guiding ray,—

Our tardy Art shall wear an angel’s wings,

And life shall lengthen with the joy it brings!

—_Holmes_.

*

I am not of that feather, to shake off my friend when most he needs me.

—_Shakespeare_.

*

Let the honor of thy friend be as dear unto thee as thy own.

—_The Talmud_.

*

Life to be rich and fertile must be reinforced with friendship. It is
the sap that preserves from blight and withering; it is the sunshine
that beckons on the blossoming and fruitage; it is the starlight dew
that perfumes life with sweetness and besprinkles it with splendor; it
is the music-tide that sweeps the soul, scattering treasures; it is the
victorious and blessed leader of integrity’s forlorn hope; it is the
potent alchemy that transmutes failure into success; it is the hidden
manna that nourishes when all other sustenance fails; it is the voice
that speaks to hopes all dead, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” For
the loftiest friendships have no commercial element in them: they are
founded on disinterestedness and sacrifices. They neither expect nor
desire a return for gift or service. Amid the tireless breaking of the
billows on the shores of experience, there is no surer anchorage than a
friendship that “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all
things.”

—_Cooper_.

*

It is one of the wretchednesses of the great that they have no approved
friends. Kings are the most solitary beings on earth.

—_Channing_.

*

Many kinds of fruit grow upon the tree of life, but none so sweet as
friendship.

—_Larcom_.

*

My treasures are my friends.

—_Constantius_.

*

Life should be fortified by many friendships.

—_Smith_.

*

Love begins with love; and there is no passing from firm friendship to
even feeble love.

—_La Bruyere_.

*

Live not without a friend; the Alpine rock must own

Its mossy grace or else be nothing but a stone.

—_Story_.

*

Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin
its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand
years.

—_Emerson_.

*

Make new friends, but keep the old;

Those are silver, these are gold,

Brow may wrinkle, hair grows grey:

True friendship never knows decay.

—_Anon_.

*

Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a
person—having neither to weigh thought 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 with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

—_Muloch_.

*

O matchless wisdom; those seem to take the sun out of the world who
remove friendship from the pleasures of life: than which we have
received nothing better or more pleasant from the gods.

—_Cicero_.

*

Not on the store of sprightly wine,

Nor plenty of delicious meats,

Though generous Nature did design

To court us with perpetual treats;

‘Tis not on these we for content depend,

So much as on the shadow of a friend.

—_Menander_.

*

Since human affairs are frail and fleeting, some persons must ever be
sought for whom we may love, and by whom we may be loved; for when
affection and kind feeling are done away with, all cheerfulness likewise
is banished from existence.

—_Cicero_.

*

Lying on lower levels is but a trivial offence compared with civility
and compliments on the level of friendship.

—_Thoreau_.

*

My friend, with you to live alone,

Were how much better than to own

A crown, a sceptre and a throne!

—_Tennyson_.

*

Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior intellect can
never taste.

—_La Bruyere_.

*

Sweet words will multiply a man’s friends; and a fair-speaking tongue
will multiply courtesies. Let those that are at peace with thee be many;
but thy counsellors one of a thousand. If thou wouldest get thee a
friend, get him by proving, and be not in haste to trust him. For there
is a friend that is so for his own occasion, and he will not continue in
the day of thy affliction. And there is a friend that turneth to enmity;
and he will discover strife to thy reproach. And there is a friend that
is a companion at the table, and he will not continue in the day of thy
affliction; and in thy prosperity he will be as thyself, and will be
bold over thy servants; if thou shalt be brought low, he will be against
thee, and he will hide himself from thy face.

—_Bible_.

*

The first thing you should procure, after faith, is a good friend.

—_Arabic_.

*

Such a friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as
bright bodies emit rays at a distance, and flowers drop their sweet
leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favor even to the
places where they dwell. With friends even poverty is pleasant. Words
cannot express the joy which a friend imparts; they only can know who
have experienced. A friend is dearer than the light of heaven, for it
would be better for us that the sun were extinguished than that we
should be without friends.

—_S. Chrysostom_.

*

Strange as it may sound, we are sometimes rather disposed to choose our
friends from the unworthy than the worthy; for though it is difficult to
love those whom we do not esteem, it is a greater difficulty to love
those whom we esteem much more than ourselves. A perfect friendship
requires equality, even in virtue.

—_Smith_.

*

Sincerity, truth, faithfulness, come into the very essence of
friendship.

—_Channing_.

*

Somehow or other, friendship entwines itself with the life of all men,
nor does it suffer any mode of spending our life to be independent of
itself.

—_Cicero_.

*

Small service is true service while it lasts,

Of humblest friends, bright creature, scorn not one;

The daisy by the shadow that it casts

Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.

—_Wordsworth_.

*

Some friendships are made by nature, some by contract, some by interest,
and some by souls.

—_Taylor_.

*

They who dare to ask anything of a friend, by their very request seem to
imply that they would do anything for the sake of a friend.

—_Cicero_.

*

To act the part of a true friend requires more conscientious feeling
than to fill with credit and complacency any other station or capacity
in social life.

—_Ellis_.

*

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth and
that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend
and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self;
and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man’s self as the
liberty of a friend.

—_Bacon_.

*

The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws
of nature and of morals.

—_Emerson_.

*

To he only an admirer is not to be a friend of a human being. Human
nature wants something more, and our perceptions are diseased when we
dress up a human being in the attributes of divinity. He is our friend
who loves more than admires us, and would aid us in our great work.

—_Channing_.

*

True, active, productive friendship consists in keeping equal pace in
life, in the approval of my aims by my friend, while I approve his, and
thus moving forward together steadily, however much our way of thought
and life may vary.

—_Goethe_.

*

The man, that comforts a desponding friend

With words alone, does nothing. He’s a friend

Indeed, who proves himself a friend in need.

—_Plautus_.

*

The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have
of a man’s success in life.

—_Hale_.

*

Truthfulness, frankness, disinterestedness, and faithfulness are the
qualities absolutely essential to friendship, and these must be crowned
by a sympathy that enters into all the joys, the sorrows and the
interests of the friend; that delights in all his upward progress, and
when he stumbles or falls, stretches out the helping hand, and is tender
and patient even when it condemns.

—_Ware_.

*

The expensiveness of friendship does not lie in what one does for one’s
friends, but in what, out of regard for them, one leaves undone.

—_Ibsen_.

*

There are three friendships which are advantageous, and three which are
injurious. Friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere;
and friendship with the man of observation: these are advantageous.

Friendship with the man of specious airs; friendship with the
insinuatingly soft; and friendship with the glib-tongued: these are
injurious.

—_Confucius_.

*

The tree withereth

Which stands in the courtyard

Without shelter of bark or of leaf.

So is a man

Destitute of friends.

Why should he live on?

—_The Hava-mal_.

*

There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship, and
indeed, friendship itself is but a part of virtue.

—_Pope_.

*

The mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the conversation of a
well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way
comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It eases
and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders
thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolutions, soothes
and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the vacant
hours of life.

—_Addison_.

*

The best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship is to
cast and see how many things there are which a man cannot do himself;
and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to
say “that a friend is another himself.”

—_Bacon_.

*

The conversation of a friend brightens the eyes.

—_Persian Proverb_.

*

Those who want friends to open themselves unto, are cannibals of their
own hearts. But one thing is most admirable, which is, that this
communicating of a man’s self to his friend works two contrary effects;
for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth grief in halfs. For there is no man
that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no
man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less.

—_Bacon_.

*

There is no better medicine for grief than the advice of a good and
honored friend. He who, in his sufferings, excites and tries to soothe
his mind by wine, though he may have pleasure for a moment, has a double
portion of pain afterwards.

—_Euripides_.

*

Time draweth wrinkles in a fair face, but addeth fresh colors to a fast
friend.

—_Lyle_.

*

The good man has the same relation to his friend as he has to himself.

—_Aristotle_.

*

There is in friendship something of all relations and something above
them all. It is the golden thread that ties the hearts of all the world.

—_Evelyn_.

*

To God be humble, and to thy friend be kind.

—_Dunbar_.

*

The perfection of loving-kindness is to efface ourselves so thoroughly
that those we benefit shall not think themselves inferior to him who
benefits them.

—_Balzac_.

*

The purest and most lasting human friendships are permeated with an
element of reverence.

—_Phelps_.

*

There are gold-bright suns in worlds above,

And blazing gems in worlds below,

Our world has Love and only Love,

For living warmth and jewel glow;

God’s love is sunlight to the good,

And Woman’s pure as diamond sheen,

And Friendships’s mystic brotherhood

In twilight beauty lies between.

—_Milne_.

*

The friendship which arises from contraries is horrible and coarse, and
has often no tie of communion; but that which arises from likeness is
gentle, and has a tie of communion, which lasts through life.

—_Plato_.

*

To live with one’s enemies as if they might one day be our friends, and
to live with our friends as though they might one day become our
enemies, is neither natural to hatred nor consistent with friendship.

Such a maxim is not moral, but politic.

—_La Bruyere_.

*

To take the companionship of life from life, what else is it than to
take away the means of absent friends conversing together?

—_Cicero_.

*

The love of friendship is the most perfect form of loving.

—_Cardinal Manning_.

*

The highest compact we can make with our fellow is, Let there be truth
between us two forevermore. It is sublime to feel and say of another, I
need never meet, or speak, or write to him; we need not reinforce
ourselves or send tokens of remembrance, I rely on him as on myself; if
he did thus or thus I know it was right.

—_Emerson_.

*

True friendship between man and man is infinite and immortal.

—_Plato_.

*

There is a magic in the memory of schoolboy friendships; it softens the
heart, and even affects the nervous system of those who have no hearts.

—_Disraeli_.

*

Think it not friendship which ever seeks itself, but that which gives
itself for others.

—_Marshall_.

*

The vital air of friendship is composed of confidences.

—_Roux_.

*

When Socrates was building himself a house at Athens, being asked by one
that observed the littleness of the design why a man so eminent would
not have an abode more suitable to his dignity, he replied that he
should think himself sufficiently accommodated if he could see that
narrow habitation filled with real friends.

—_Johnson_.

*

While friendship embraces very many and great advantages, she
undoubtedly surpasses all in this, that she shines with a brilliant hope
over the future, and never suffers the spirit to be weakened or to sink.

Besides, he who looks on a true friend, looks, as it were, upon a kind
of image of himself; wherefore, friends, though absent, are still
present; though in poverty, they are rich; though weak, yet in the
enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to assert, though
dead, they are alive; so entirely does the honor, the memory, the regret
of friends attend them.

—_Cicero_.

*

Thine own friend and thy father’s friend, forsake not.

—_Solomon_.

*

While I keep my senses I shall prefer nothing to a pleasant friend.

—_Horace_.

*

What a great blessing is a friend, with a breast so trusty that thou
mayest safely bury all thy secrets in it, whose conscience thou mayest
fear less than thine own, who can relieve thy cares by his conversation,
thy doubts by his counsels, thy sadness by his good humor, and whose
very look gives comfort to thee!

—_Seneca_.

*

What can be more delightful than to have one to whom you can speak on
all subjects just as to yourself? Where would be the great enjoyment in
prosperity if you had not one to rejoice in it equally with yourself?

And adversity would indeed be difficult to endure without some one who
would bear it even with greater regret than yourself.

—_Cicero_.

*

With one friend I would count myself rich.

—_Nusbaum_.

*

What is bestowed on our friends is beyond the reach of fortune; the
riches that thou hast given away are the only riches that thou really
possessest.

—_Martial_.

*

Well chosen friendship, the most noble

Of virtues, all our joys makes double

And into halves divides our trouble.

—_Denham_.

*

We are most of us very lonely in this world; you who have any who love
you, cling to them and thank God.

—_Thackeray_.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,

And weep afresh love’s long since canceled woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

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

All losses are restored and sorrows end.

—_Shakespeare_.

*

You shall perceive how you

Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.

—_Shakespeare_.

*

You must, therefore, love me myself, and not my circumstances, if we are
to be real friends.

—_Cicero_.

*

With conscious pride I view the band

Of faithful friends that round me stand,

With pride exult that I alone

Can join these scattered gems in one;

For they’re a wreath of pearls, and I

The silken cord on which they lie.

‘Tis mine their inmost souls to see,

Unlocked is every heart to me,

To me they cling, on me they rest,

And I’ve a place in every breast.

For they’re a wreath of pearls, and I

The silken cord on which they lie.

—_From the Arabic_.

*

What room can there be for friendship, or who can be a friend to any one
whom he does not love for his own sake? And what is loving, from which
verb (amo) the very name of friendship (amicitia) is derived, but
wishing a certain person to enjoy the greatest possible good fortune,
even if none of it accrues to one’s self?

—_Cicero_.

*

What makes us so changeable in our friendships is the difficulty we have
in discerning the qualities of the heart, and the ease with which we
discern those of the mind.

—_La Rochefoucauld_.

*

Worldly friendship is profuse in honeyed words, passionate endearments,
commendations of beauty, while true friendship speaks a simple honest
language.

—_De Sales_.

*

You cannot find a man who fully loves any living thing, that, dolt and
dullard though he be, is not in some spot lovable himself. He gets
something from his friends if he had nothing at all before.

—_Brooks_.

*

We can live without a brother, but not without a friend.

—_German Proverb_.

*

Whatever is founded on mere carnal love, vanity or frivolity, on such
attractions as are purely external, a sweet voice, personal beauty,
superficial cleverness or outward show, is unworthy to be called
friendship.

—_De Sales_.

*

You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your
griefs to your friend.

—_Shakespeare_.

*

When a man cannot fitly play his own part, if he have not a friend he
may quit the stage.

—_Bacon_.

*

We want one or two companions of intelligence, probity, and grace, to
wear out life with; persons by whom we can measure ourselves, and who
shall hold us fast to good sense and virtue.

—_Emerson_.

*

A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and
talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. In a great town
friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the
most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go farther and
affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude, to want
true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness. Whosoever in
the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he
taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

—_Francis Bacon_.

*

And thou, my friend, whose gentle love

Yet thrills my bosom’s chords,

How much thy friendship was above

Description’s power of words.

—_Lord Byron_.

*

As friendship must be founded on mutual
esteem, it cannot long exist among
the vicious.

—_Horace Smith_.

*

A friend is worth all the hazards we can run.

—_Edward Young_.

*

A true friend is forever a friend.

—_George MacDonald_.

*

A benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his
friends in countenance.

—_Benjamin Franklin_.

*

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that
actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.

—_Washington_.

*

A faithful friend is better than gold—a medicine for misery, an only
possession.

—_Burton_.

*

Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of

God’s best gifts. It involves many things, but, above all, the power of
going out of one’s self and seeing and appreciating whatever is noble
and loving in another.

—_Hughes_.

*

Cultivate the friendships of thy youth; it is only in that generous time
they are formed.

—_Thackeray_.

*

Companions I have enough, friends few.

—_Pope_.

*

Friendship is steady and peaceful; not much jealousy, and no
heartburnings. It strengthens with time, and survives the smallpox and
a wooden leg. It doubles our joys, divides our griefs, and warms our
lives with a steady flame.

—_Reade_.

*

Friendship above all ties doth bind the heart,

And Faith is Friendship in its noblest part.

—_Earl of Orrey_.

*

Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven,

The noble mind’s delight and pride,

To men and angels only given,

To all the lower world denied.

—_Samuel Johnson_.

*

Friendship is a plant which cannot be forced. True friendship is no
gourd, springing up in a night and withering in a day.

—_Charlotte Bronte_.

*

Friendship always benefits, while love sometimes injures.

—_Seneca_.

*

Friendship heightens all our affections. We, receive all the ardor of
our friend in addition to our own. The communication of minds gives to
each the fervor of each.

—_Channing_.

*

Fate, which has ordained that there shall be no friendship among the
evil, has also ordained that there shall ever be friendship among the
good.

—_Plato_.

*

False friendship turns to evil desires, upbraidings, slander, deceit,
sorrow, confusion and jealousies; but pure friendship is always the
same, modest, courteous and loving, knowing no change save an
increasingly pure and perfect union.

—_De Sales_.

*

Friendship is love with understanding.

—_Proverb_.

*

Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives, and remembering what
one receives.

—_Dumas_.

*

Friendship is said to be a plant of tedious growth, its roots composed
of tender fibers, nice in their taste, cautious in spreading.

—_Vanbrough_.

*

Friendship springs from nature rather than from need.

—_Cicero_.

*

Friendship, a dear balm—

Whose coming is as light and music are

‘Mid dissonance and gloom:—a star

Which moves not ‘mid the moving heavens alone;

A smile among dark frowns: a beloved light:

A solitude, a refuge, a delight.

—_P. B. Shelley_.

*

Friendship is the greatest bond in the world.

—_Jeremy Taylor_.

Friendship is love without wings.

—_Byron_.

For as yellow gold is tried by fire, so do moments of adversity prove
the strength of friendship. While fortune is friendly and smiles with
serene countenance, crowds surround the rich; but when heaven’s thunder
rolls, they vanish, nor has he one who knows him, though lately
encircled by troops of boon companions.

—_Ovid_.

Our best friends have a tincture of jealousy even in their friendship;
and when they hear us praised by others, will ascribe it to sinister and
interested motives if they can.

—_C. C. Colton_.

*

For to have the same predilections and the same aversions, that and that
alone is the surest bond of friendship.

—_Sallust_.

False friends, like insects in a summer’s day,

Bask in the sunshine, but avoid the shower;

Uncertain visitants, they flee away

E’en when misfortune’s cloud begins to lower.

Into life’s bitter cup true friendship drops

Balsamic sweets to overpower the gall;

True friends, like ivy and the wall it props,

Both stand together, or together fall.

—_Anonymous_.

He who cannot feel friendship is alike incapable of love. Let a woman
beware of the man who owns that he loves no one but herself.

—_Talleyrand_.

*

How were friendship possible? In mutual devotedness to the Good and

True: otherwise impossible; except as armed neutrality or hollow
commercial league. A man, be the heavens ever praised, is sufficient for
himself; yet were ten men, united in love, capable of being and doing
what ten thousand singly would fail. Infinite is the help man can yield
to man!

—_Carlyle_.

He that hath gained a friend, hath given hostages to fortune.

—_Shakespeare_.

How often in thy journeyings hast thou made thee instant friends,

Found, to be loved a little while, and lost, to meet no more;

Friends of happy reminiscences, although so transient in their converse,

Liberal, cheerful, and sincere, a crowd of kindly traits.

—_Tupper_.

*

Heaven forming each on other to depend,

A master, or a servant, or a friend,

Bids each on other for assistance call,

Till one man’s weakness grows the strength of all.

—_Pope_.

In friendship we find nothing false or insincere; everything is
straightforward, and springs from the heart.

—_Cicero_.

Keep well thine tongue and keep thy friend.

—_Chaucer_.

Thy friend will come to thee unsought,

With nothing can his love be bought,

His soul thine own will know at sight,

With him thy heart can speak outright.

Greet him nobly, love him well,

Show him where your best thoughts dwell,

Trust him greatly and for aye;

A true friend comes but once your way.

*

If you would keep your friend, approach him with a telescope, never with
the microscope.

—_Anon_.

It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend of his
faults. If you are angry with a man, or hate him, it is not hard to go
to him and stab him with words; but so to love a man that you cannot
hear to see the stain of sin upon him, and to speak painful truth
through loving words—that is friendship. But few have such friends. Our
enemies usually teach us what we are, at the point of the sword.

—_Beecher_.

My friend is not perfect—no more I—and so we suit each other
admirably.

—_Pope_.

I could not live without the love of my friends.

—_John Keats_.

*

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

—_Euripides_.

If you would know how rare a thing a true friend is, let me tell you
that to be a true friend a man must be perfectly honest.

—_Henry W. Shaw_.

If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our
friends for their sakes rather than for our own.

—_Charlotte Bronte_.

In friendship even thought meets thought ere from the lips it part, and
each warm wish springs mutual from the heart.

—_Pope_.

*

I have sped by land and sea, and mingled with much people,

But never yet could find a spot unsunned by human kindness;

Some more, and some less; but, truly, all can claim a little:

And a man may travel through the world, and sow it thick with
friendships.

—_Tupper_.

*

Love is the greatest of human affections, and friendship the noblest and
most refined improvement of love.

—_South_.

*

Love is flower-like;

Friendship is like a sheltering tree.

—_S. T. Coleridge_.

*

Seek no friend to make him useful, for that is the negation of
friendship; but seek him that you may be useful, for this is of
friendship’s essence.

—_Wallace_.

*

Much certainly of the happiness and purity of our lives depends on our
making a wise choice of our companions and friends. Many people seem to
trust in this matter to the chapter of accidents. It is well and right,
indeed, to be courteous and considerate to every one with whom one is
thrown in contact, but to choose them as real friends is another
matter…. If our friends are badly chosen they will inevitably drag us
down; if well they will raise us up.

—_Avebury_.

Not only does friendship introduce daylight in the understanding out of
darkness and confusion of thoughts; it maketh a fair day in the
affections from storm and tempests; in consultation with a friend a man
tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he
seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth
wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse than by a day’s
meditation.

—_Bacon_.

*

Nothing is more common than the name of friend; nothing is more rare
than friendship.

—_Phaedrus_.

O, friendship! thou fond soother of the human breast, to thee we fly in
every calamity.

—_Goldsmith_.

Of all felicities the most charming is that of a firm and gentle
friendship. It sweetens our cares, dispels our sorrows, and counsels us
in all our extremities.

—_Seneca_.

Old friends are the greatest blessings of one’s later years.

—_Horace Walpole_.

Of all the best things upon earth, I hold that a faithful friend is the
best.

—_Owen Meredith_.

*

Reprove your friends in secret, praise them openly.

—_Publius Syrus_.

True friendship purifies and exalts. A friend may be a second
conscience.

—_J. Stalker_.

The greatest happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved,
loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves.

—_Hugo_.

The fewer our friends become, the more let us love one another.

—_Benjamin Franklin_.

The surest bulwark against evil is that of friendship.

—_Yonge_.

*

The years have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons—
none wiser than this:

To spend in all things else, but of one’s friends to be most miserly.

—_James Russell Lowell_.

The best mirror is an old friend.

—_Tennyson_.

True friendships are eternal.

—_Cicero_.

That two men may be real friends, they must have opposite opinions,
similar principles, and different loves and hatreds.

—_Chateaubriand_.

There are very few friends with whom one can be intimate on all
subjects. Discover the range of your intimacy with each friend and
never go beyond it.

—_J. A. Spender_.

*

Two persons will not be friends long if they cannot forgive each other’s
little failings.

—_La Bruyere_.

There is this important difference between love and friendship: while
the former delights in extremes and opposites, the latter demands
equalities.

—_Mme. de Maintenon_.

There is no folly equal to that of throwing away friendship, in a world
were friendship is so rare.

—_Bulwer-Lytton_.

The very ground and gist of a noble friendship is the cultivation in
common of the personal inner lives of those who partake in it, their
mutual reflection of souls and joint sharing of experience inciting them
to a constant betterment of their being and their happiness.

*

Think of the importance of friendship in the education of men. It will
make a man honest; it will make him a hero; it will make him a saint. It
is the state of the just dealing with the just, the magnanimous with the
magnanimous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man.

—_Thoreau_.

There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship—truth
and tenderness.

—_Emerson_.

There are a thousand nameless ties,

Which only such as feel them know;

Of kindred thoughts, deep sympathies,

And untold fancy spells, which throw

O’er ardent minds and faithful hearts

A chain whose charmed links so blend,

That the light circlet but imparts

Its force in these fond words, My friend.

—_Mrs. Dinnies_.

*

We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected.

—_Emerson_.

Wanting to have a friend is altogether different from wanting to be a
friend. The former is a mere natural human craving, the latter is the
life of Christ in the soul.

—_J. R. Hitter_.

Whoever undertakes a friend’s great part,

Should be renewed in nature, pure in heart,

Prepared for martyrdom, and strong to prove

A thousand ways the force of genuine love.

—_Cowper_.

A faithful friend is the true image of the Deity.

—_Napoleon_.

*

As I love nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and
flowing rivers, and morning, and evening, and summer, and winter, I love
thee, my friend.

—_Thoreau_.

*

A poet might sing you his sweetest of songs,

But this must the poet have known:

Of the heart whose love to you only belongs,

Whose strength would be spent to save you from wrongs

Of a soul knit to yours with the mightiest thongs,

And sing them for you alone!

An artist might paint you a picture fair;

That would equal the greatest known;

But the heart of a friend, to do and to dare,

To save you from sorrow, and trial, and care,

Is something an artist, paint he ever so rare,

Has never on canvas shown!

*

Ancient Menander accounted him happy that had but met the shadow of a
true friend; verily he had reason to say so, especially if he had tasted
of any; for truly, if I compare all the rest of my forepassed life,
which, although I have, by the mere mercy of God, passed at rest and
ease, and except the loss of so dear a friend, free from all grievous
affliction, with an ever quietness of mind, as one that have taken my
natural and original commodities in good payment, without searching any
others; if, as I say, I compare it all unto the four years I so happily
enjoyed the sweet company and most dear society of that worthy man, it
is nought but a vapor, nought but a dark and irksome light.

I do but languish, I do but sorrow; and even those pleasures all things
present me with, instead of yielding me comfort, do but redouble the
grief of his loss. We were co-partners in all things. All things were
with us at half; methinks I have stolen his part from him. I was so
accustomed to be ever two, and so inured to be never single, that
methinks I am but half myself.

—_Montaigne_.

*

A friend’s bosom

Is the inmost cave of our own mind

Where we sit from the wide gaze of day

And from the all-communicating air.

—_Shelley_.

*

A generous friendship no cold medium knows,

Burns with one love, with one resentment glows;

One should our interests and our passions be,

My friend must hate the man that injures me.

—_Pope_.

*

A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities.

—_Shakespeare_.

*

Be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, and you will enjoy
through life the respect and love of friends.

—_Sherman_.

*

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or
friends. Turn the old; return to them.

—_Thoreau_.

*

A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol
them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of
the like; but all these things are graceful in a friend’s mouth which
are blushing in a man’s own.

—_Bacon_.

*

Come, friend, my fire is burning bright,

A fire’s no longer out of place,

How clear it glows (there’s frost tonight)

It looks white winter in the face.

Be mine the tree that feeds the fire,

Be mine, the sun knows when to set,

Be mine, the months when friends desire

To turn in here from cold and wet,

—_Constable_.

*

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,

And round his dwelling guardian saints attend;

Blest be that spot where cheerful guests retire

To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;

Blest that abode where want and pain repair,

And every stranger finds a ready chair:

Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned,

With all the ruddy family around.

—_Goldsmith_.

*

But let us drink a merry toast,

Let’s drink to now and here,

Good fellowship shall be our boast,

In either woe or cheer!

O’er joys we’ve had, why sorrow brew?

Why live in days gone past?

We’ll drink to friends both old and new,

Just so our friends are fast.

—_Delaney_.

*

But oh, if grief thy steps attend,

If want, if sickness, be thy lot,

And thou require a soothing friend,

Forget me not! Forget me not!

—_Opie_.

*

We just shake hands at meeting

With many that come nigh;

We nod the head in greeting

To many that go by.

But welcome through the gateway

Our few old friends and true;

The hearts leap up and straightway

There’s open house for you,

Old friends,

There’s open house for you.

—_Massey_.

*

Beyond all wealth, honor, or even health, is the attachment we form to
noble souls; because to become one with the good, generous, and true, is
to become in a measure good, generous, and true ourselves.

—_Arnold_.

*

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

—_Franklin_.

*

Convey thy love to thy friend, as an arrow to the mark, to stick there;
not as a ball against the wall to rebound back to thee.

—_Francis Quarles_.

*

Ah, friend, let us be true

To one another! For the world which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

—_Matthew Arnold_.

*

Friendship is power and riches a11 to me;

Friendship’s another element of life;

Water and fire are not of more general use

To the support and comfort of the world

Than friendship to the being of my joy;

I would do everything to serve a friend.

—_Southerne_.

*

For every leaf the loveliest flower,

Which beauty sighs for from her bower—

For every star a drop of dew—

For every sun a sky of blue–

For every heart, a heart as true.

—_Bailey_.

*

Friendship receives its crown in marriage when love is mingled with
admiration and respect.

*

Friendship, one soul in two bodies.

—_Pythagoras_.

*

Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!

Sweet’ner of life, the solder of society!

I owe thee much. Thou hast deserved of me

Far, far beyond whatever I can pay.

Oft have I proved the labors of thy love,

And the warm efforts of the gentle heart

Anxious to please. O! when my friend and I

In some thick wood have wander’d heedless on,

Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down

Upon the sloping cowslip-covered bank,

Where the pure limpid stream has slid along,

In grateful errors through the under-wood,

Sweet murmurings, methought the shrill-tongued thrush

Mended his song of love; the sooty blackbird

Mellow’d his pipe, and soften’d every note;

The eglantine smell’d sweeter, and the rose

Assumed a dye more deep.

O! then the longest summer’s day

Seem’d too, too much in haste: still the full heart

Had not imparted half: ‘tis happiness

Too exquisite to last!

—_Blair_.

*

Friendship was given us by nature as the handmaid of virtues, and not as
the companion of our vices.

—_Cicero_.

*

Friendships, like trees, bring forth fruit after their kind. Corrupt
friendships, corrupt fruit; good friendship, good fruit.

—_Diggle_.

*

Friendship is usually treated by the majority of mankind as a tough and
everlasting thing which will survive all manner of bad treatment. But
this is an exceedingly great and foolish error; it may die in an hour of
a single unwise word.

—_Ouida_.

*

Friendship is a vase, which when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or
accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after.

The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern
the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if
they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious ones never.

—_Walter Savage Landor_.

*

Hand grasps hand, eye lights eye, in good Friendship.

And great hearts expand and grow one in the sense of this world’s
life.

—_Browning_.

*

God never loved me in so sweet a way before;

‘Tis he alone who can such blessings send;

And when His love would new expression find

He brought thee to me and He said, “Behold a friend.”

*

Friendship is the wine of existence; love the dram-drinking.

—_Bulwer_.

*

He who has ceased to enjoy his friend’s superiority, has ceased to love
him.

—_Madame Swetckine_.

*

I thank Thee, Lord, for every moment dropped

Into my life that had some sweetness in it,

For all the golden hours when friendship met

And gave up heart for heart and thought for thought,

For all the love that faithful hearts let fall,

To drop into mine own; for every look

From loving eyes; for every smile or word

That gladdened me; for subtle influence

That made me strong, dear Lord, I thank Thee.

—_Pastor_.

*

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of a song;

*

The song from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

—_Longfellow_.

*

I find no place that does not breathe

Some gracious memory of my friend.

—_Tennyson_.

*

I awake this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old
and the new.

—_Emerson_.

*

I can only urge you to prefer friendship to all human possessions; for
there is nothing so suited to our nature, so well adapted to prosperity
or adversity.

—_Cicero_.

*

If any little love of mine

May make a life the sweeter,

If any little care of mine

May make a friend’s the fleeter,

If any life of mine may ease

The burden of another,

God give me love and care and strength

To help my toiling brother.

*

If you have a friend worth loving,

Love him. Yes, and let him know

That you love him, ere life’s evening

Tinge his brow with sunset glow;

Why should good words ne’er be said

Of a friend till he is dead?

—_Unknown_.

Old books, old wine, old Nankin blue,

All things, in short, to which belong

The charm, the grace that Time makes strong—

All these I prize, but (_entre nous_)

Old friends are best!

—_Austin Dobson_.

*

I never crossed your threshold with a grief

But that I went without it, never came

Heart hungry but you fed me,

And gave the sorrow solace and relief.

I never left you but I took away

The love that drew me to your side again,

Through the wide door that never could remain

Quite closed between us for a little day.

*

If you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism.

—_Sir Arthur Helps_.

*

If you have friends in adversity, stand by them.

—_Dickens_.

*

It is every man’s duty to make himself profitable to mankind.

—_Seneca_.

*

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it
could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer: because it was
he, because it was I.

—_Montaigne_.

*

Indifferent people can only wound you in heterogeneous parts, maim you
in your arm or leg: but the friend can make no pass but at the heart
itself.

—_Steele_.

*

Tell me, gentle traveler, who hast wandered through the world, and seen
the sweetest roses blow, and brightest gliding rivers, of all thine eyes
have seen, which is the fairest land? “Child, shall I tell thee where
nature is more blest and fair? It is where those we love abide. Though
that space be small, ample is it above kingdoms; though it be a desert,
through it runs the river of Paradise, and there are the enchanted
bowers.”

—_Unknown_.

*

My coat and I live comfortably together. It has assumed all my
wrinkles, does not hurt me anywhere, has moulded itself on my
deformities, and is complacent to all my movements, and I only feel its
presence because it keeps me warm. Old coats and old friends are the
same thing.

—_Hugo_.

*

Judge not thy friend until thou standest in his place.

—_Rabbi Hillel_.

*

Let no man think he is loved by any man when he loves no man.

—_Epictetus_.

*

My friend peers in on me with merry

Wise face, and though the sky stay dim,

The very light of day, the very

Sun’s self comes in with him.

—_A. C. Swinburne_.

*

O sweeter than the honey well,

Deep in the sweetest rose of June,

And all sweet things the tongue can tell

On clover-scented afternoon,

Is friendship that has lived for years

Through fortune, failure, and through tears.

Though he who wears it sacredly

Be swarted like the rafters are

That shelter him, eternity

May hold few jewels half so rare!

And God will find for such a friend

Some sweeter slumber in the end.

—_Botsford_.

*

Still, Love a summer sunrise shines,

So rich its clouds are hung,

So sweet its songs are sung.

And Friendship’s but broad, common day,

With light enough to show

Where fruit with brambles grow;

With warmth enough to feed

The grain of daily need.

—_Unknown_.

*

Only—but this is rare—

When a beloved hand is laid in ours,

When jaded with the rush and glare

Of the interminable hours,

Our eyes can in another’s eyes read clear,

When our world-deafened ear

Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed—

A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,

And a lost impulse of feeling stirs again.

The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,

And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

—_Arnold_.

*

Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship,

Let me be the first, the truest, the nearest, the dearest.

—_Longfellow_.

*

The only danger in friendship is that it may end.

—_Thoreau_.

*

Of all the heavenly gifts that mortal men commend,

What trusty treasure in the world can countervail a friend?

Our health is soon decayed; goods, casual, light and vain;

Broke have we seen the force of power, and honor suffer stain.

In body’s lust man doth resemble but base brute;

True virtue gets and keeps a friend, good guide of our pursuit.

Whose hearty zeal with ours accords in every case;

No term of time, no space of place, no storm can it deface.

—_Nicholas Grimoald_.

*

When we have fallen through story after story of our vanity and
aspiration, and sit rueful among the ruins, then it is that we begin to
measure the stature of our friends; how they stand between us and our
own contempt, believing in our best.

—_Stevenson_.

*

Reason is the torch of friendship, judgment its guide, tenderness its
aliment.

—_De Bonald_.

*

Some I remember and will ne’er forget

My early friends, friends of my evil day;

Friends in my mirth, friends in my misery too,

Friends given by God in mercy and in love;

My counsellors, my comforters, and guides;

My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy;

Companions of my young desires; in doubt

My oracles; my wings in high pursuit.

Oh, I remember, and will ne’er forget

Our meeting spots, our chosen sacred hours;

Our burning words that utter’d all the soul;

Our faces beaming with unearthly love;

Sorrow with sorrow sighing, hope with hope

Exulting, heart embracing heart entire.

—_R. Pollok_.

*

Some love the glow of outward show,

Some love mere wealth, and try to win it;

The house to me may lowly be,

If I but like the people in it!

What’s all the gold that glitters cold,

When link’d to hard or haughty feeling?

Whate’er we’re told, the nobler gold

Is truth of heart and manly dealing!

Then let them seek, whose minds are weak,

Mere fashion’s smile, and try to win it;

The house to me may lowly be,

If I but like the people in it!

—_Swain_.

*

Talk not of wasted affection,

Affection never was wasted;

If it enrich not the heart of another,

Its waters returning

Back to their springs like the rain,

Shall fill them full of refreshment;

That which the fountain sends forth

Returns again to the fountain.

—_Longfellow_.

*

There is no greater bane to friendship than adulation, fawning, and
flattery. For this vice should be branded under as many names as
possible, being that of worthless and designing men, who say everything
with a view of pleasing, and nothing with regard to truth. Now while
hypocrisy in all things is blamable (for it does away with all judgment
of truth, and adulterates truth itself), so especially is it repugnant
to friendship, for it destroys all truth, without which the name of
friendship can avail nothing.

—_Cicero_.

*

These things do not require to be spoken; there is something in the hand
grip and the look in the eye that makes you know your man.

—_Chambers_.

*

The man who prefers his dearest friend to the call of duty will soon
show that he prefers himself to his dearest friend.

—_Robertson_.

*

There is nothing like putting the shine on another’s face to put the
shine on our own. Nine-tenths of all loneliness, sensitiveness,
despondency, moroseness, are connected with personal interests. Turn
more of those selfish interests into unselfish ones, and by so much we
change opportunities for disheartenment into their opposite. By a law of

Nature part of her beautiful economy, he who lives most for others is
really living most for himself.

—_Gannett_.

*

The foundation of that steadfastness and constancy which we seek in
friendship, is sincerity. For nothing is steadfast which is insincere.

—_Cicero_.

*

The wise man seeks a friend in whom are those qualities which he himself
may lack; for thus being united is their friendship the more completely
defended against adversity.

—_Jeremy Taylor_.

*

The Swallow is a summer bird;

He in our chimneys, when the weather

Is fine and warm, may then be heard

Chirping his notes for weeks together.

Come there but one cold wintry day,

Away will fly our guest the Swallow:

And much like him we find the way

Which many a gay young friend will follow.

In dreary days of snow and frost,

Closer to Man will cling the Sparrow:

Old friends, although in life we’re crost,

Their hearts to us will never narrow.

Give me the bird—give me the friend—

Will sing in frost—will love in sorrow—

Whate’er mischance to-day may send,

Will greet me with his sight to-morrow.

—_Lamb_.

*

True happiness consists not in the
multitude of friends, but in the worth and
choice.

—_Dr. Johnson_.

*

The earth-born clod who hugs his idol pelf,

His only friends are Mammon and himself;

The drunken sots, who want the art to think,

Still cease from friendship when they cease from drink.

The empty fop who scarce for man will pass,

Ne’er sees a friend but when he views his glass.

Friendship first springs from sympathy of mind,

Which to complete the virtues all combine,

And only found ‘mongst men who can espy

The merits of his friend without envy.

Thus all pretending friendship’s but a dream,

Whose base is not reciprocal esteem.

—_Allan Ramsay_.

*

We grow by love. It is said, why live for others? But others are our
nutriment.

—_Channing_.

*

There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot
force it any more than love.

—_Hazlitt_.

*

There are few subjects which have been more written upon, and less
understood, than that of friendship. To follow the dictates of some,
this virtue instead of being the messenger of pain becomes the source of
every inconvenience. Such specialists, by expecting too much from
friendship, dissolve the connection, and by drawing the bands too
loosely at length break them. It is certain that the best method to
cultivate this virtue, is by letting it, in some measure, make itself; a
similitude of minds and of studies, and even sometimes a diversity of
pursuits, will produce all the pleasures that arise from it. The current
of tenderness widens as it proceeds; and two men imperceptibly find
their hearts filled with good nature for each other, when they were at
first only in pursuit of mirth or relaxation.

—_Oliver Goldsmith_.

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