Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about friendship

200 quotes from 127 people

Most readBy personPage 8 of 14

It is nothing against the validity of a friendship that the parties to it have not a mutual resemblance. There must be a basis of agreement, but the structure reared upon it may contain a thousand disparities.
Henry James1843–1916Confidence (1879), Ch. II
True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Spectator (1711–1714), No. 15 (March 17, 1711)
- Happiness
Knowing how to keep a friend is more important than gaining a new one.
Baltasar Gracián1601–1658The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647), Maxim 158 (p. 90)
Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.
Anton Chekhov1860–1904Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)
- Love
It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world.
William Hazlitt1778–1830Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld’s Maxims (1823), No. 66
If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Remark to John Colville (21 June 1941), as quoted in Andrew Nagorski, The Greatest Battle (2007), pp. 150–151
- Enemies
- War & Peace
If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
Nelson Mandela1918–2013Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
- Enemies
- War & Peace
Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV, 1781, p. 479
Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are.
TMThomas Merton1915–1968Letter to Dorothy Day (20 December 1961).
- Enemies
- Love
All political movements are like this — we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies.
Doris Lessing1919–2013Salon interview (1997)
- Enemies
- Politics
All love that has not friendship for its base,
Is like a mansion built upon the sand.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox1850–1919New Thought Pastels (1913), Love
- Love
Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Campaign (1704), Line 101
One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.
E. M. Forster1879–1970What I Believe (1938)
We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves — such a friend ought to be — do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.
Mary Shelley1797–1851Frankenstein (1818)In context
There are very few honest friends⁠—the demand is not particularly great.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach1830–1916Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 71.