Thoughts on Friends and Friendship
from A dictionary of Quotations in Prose,
by Anna Lydia Ward, 1889, pages 172-176.
Many, not being able to do without love, love at landoln. These wear out their people rapidly; a new friend each month would not be too much for them. At first all is flame. They unbosom themselves as much as they are capable of doing. This effusion once over, they yawn, complain, get angry, and depart.
1750 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love,
Friendship, Friends, No. 45. (Hap9ood, Trans.)
"Jfecessarius," the friend, the man who is necessary. . . . A deep word, an ingenious word, a touching word. When will it be French ?
1751 Joseph Rtmx : Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love,
Friendship, Friends, No. 34. (Hap9ood, Trans.)
Our friend, on the day of rupture, forges for himself a weapon against us from the fact that we are on bad terms with some one else, whether justly or not.
1752 Joseph lioux : Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love,
Friendship, Friends, No. 37. (Hap9ood, Trans.)
The man abandoned by his friends, one after another, without just cause, will acquire the reputation of being hard to please, changeable, ungrateful, unsociable.
1753 Joseph Rotix : Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love,
Friendship, Friends, No. 36. (Hap9ood, Trans.)
We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower, that man who has lost his wife. . . . And that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing his friend, by what name do we call him ? . . . Here every human language holds its peace in impotence.
1754 Joseph Roux : Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love,
Friendship, Friends, No. 54. (Hap9ood, Trans.)
We vaunt our friend as a man of talent, less because he has talent than because he is our friend.
1755 Joseph. Boux: Meditations of a Parish Priest.
1't. ix. xxxii. (Hap9ood, Translator.)
Tour friend returns from a long journey. . . . Shall yon confide in him at once? This is "hardly prudent. What if he has changed ? . . . Then feel him near his heart for an instant, at least.
1756 Joseph Roux : Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love,
Friendship, Friends, No. 16. (Hap9ood, Trans.)
A friend whom you have been gaining during your whole Jife, you ought not to be displeased with in a moment. A stone is many years becoming a ruby; take care that you do not destroy it in an instant against another stone.
1757 Saadi: The Gulifstan. Ch. 8. Rides for Conduct
in Life. No. 57.
Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes. They were easiest for his feet.
1758 John Selden: Table Talk. Friends.
Know this, that he that is a friend to himself, is a friend to all men.
1759 Seneca: Works. Epistles. No. 6. (Thomas
Lodye, Editor.)
Neither can any man live happily who only respecteth himself, who converteth all things to his own profit. Thou must live unto another, if thou wilt live unto thyself.
1760 Seneca: Works. Epistles. No. 48. (Thomas
Lod9e, Editor.)
Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
1761 Shakespeare : Coriolanus. Act ii. Sc. 1.
For to cast away a virtuous friend, I call as bad as to cast away one's own life, which one loves best.
1762 Sophocles: ^iEdipus Tyrannus. Line 611. (Oxford
Translation, p. 22.)
Aid thy friends.
1763 Stoboeus: Flor. III. 80. Maxims of the " Seven Wise
Men." (F. A. Paley, Translator, in Greek Wit.)
Have a good opinion of friends.
1764 Stobceus: Flor. III. 80. Maxims of the " Seven Wine
Men." (F. A. Paley, Translator, in Greek Wit.)
Make friends of equals.
1765 Stobaus : Flor. III. 80. Maxims of the " Seven Wise
Men." (F. A. Paley, Translator, in Greek Wit.)
Make friends of the wise.
1766 Stobceus: Flor. 111.80. Maxims of the " Seven Wise
Men." (F. A. Paley, Translator, in Greek Wit.)
Oblige a friend.
1767 Stobceus: Flor. III. 80. Maxims of the " Seven Wise
Men." (F. A. Paley, Translator, in Greek Wit.)
Amongst true friends there is no fear of losing anything.
1768 Jeremy Taylor: Of the Nature and Offices of
Friendship.
Give thy friend counsel wisely and charitably, but leave him to his liberty whether he will follow thee or no; and be not angry if thy counsel be rejected, for advice is no empire, and he is not my friend that will be my judge whether I will or no.
1769 Jeremy Taylor: Of the Nature and Offices of
Friendship.
Let no man choose him for his friend whom it shall be possible for him ever after to hate; for though the society may justly be interrupted, yet love is an immortal thing, and 1 will never despise him whom I could once think worthy of my love.
1770 Jeremy Tat1lor : Of the Nature and Offices of
Friendship.
Now when men either are unnatural or irreligious they will not be friends; when (hey are neither excellent nor useful, thcy are not worthy to be friends; when they are strangers or unknown, thfy cannot be friends actually and practically; but yet, as any man hath anything of the good, contrary to those evils, so he can have and must have his share of friendship.
1771 Jeremy Taylor : Of the Nature and Offices of
Friendship.
Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise — a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.
1772 Thackeray: Sketches and Travels in London.
On Friendship.
If I mayn't tell you what I feel, what is the use of a friend ?
1773 Thackeray: Unpublished Letters. (Scribner's
Ma9azine, June, 1888.)
It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends.
1774 Thackeray : Miscellanies. Sketches and Travels in
London. On Luce, Marria9e, Men, and Women.
Pt. iii.
May I never sit on a tribunal where my friends shall not find more favor from me than strangers.
1775 Themistocles : Reply to those who told him he would
9overn the Athenians well, if he ruled without respect of persons.
At death our friends and relatives either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart farther from us and are forgotten. Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.
1776 Henry D. Thoreau : Winter. Journal, Dec. 24, 1850. A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not
satisfy one friend.
1777 Henry D. Thoreau : Winter. Journal, Feb. 19, 1857.
Friends! They are united for good, for evil. They can delight each other as none other can. Lying on lower levels is but a trivial offence compared with civility and compliments on the level of friendship.
I visit my friend for joy, not for disturbance. If my coming hinders him in the least conceivable degree, I will exert myself to the utmost to stay away. I will get the Titans to help me stand aloof, will labor night and day to contract a rampart between us. If my coining casts but the shadow of a shadow before it, I will retreat swifter than tha wind, and more 1111 traceable. I will be gone irrevocably before lie fears that I am coining.
1778 Henry D. Thoreau : Winter. Journal, Feb. 23,1857.
Friends will be much apart. They will respect more each other's privacy than their communion, for therein is the fulfilment of our high aims and the conclusion of our arguments. That we know and would associate with, not only has high intents, but goes on high errands, and lias much private business. The hours my friend devotes to me were snatched from a higher society. He is hardly a gift level to me, but I have to reach up to take it.
1779 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. Journal, Feb. 22,1841.
I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified.
1780 Henry D. 'Thoreau : Winter. Journal, Feb. 7, 1841.
My friends! my friends! It does not cheer me to see them. They but express their want of faith in mo or in mankind. Their coldest, crnelest thought comes clothed in polite and easy-spoken words at last. I am silent to their invitations, because I do not feel invited; and we have no reasons to give for what we do not do. One says, " Love me out of this mire." The other says, " Come out of it and be lovely."
1781 Henry D. Tkoreau: Winter. Journal, Feb. 1, 1852.
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
1782 Henry D. Thoreau : Letters. To Mrs. E. Castletcn,
Staten Island, May 22, 1843.
One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be strange to him as he is more familiar lo the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then. When I observe my friend's conduct towards others, then chiefly I learn the traits of his ch-trader, and in each case I am unprepared for the issue. . . . How little do we know each other. Who can tell how his friend would behave on any occasion . . .
1783 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. Journal, Feb. 6, 1841.
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 ?
1784 Henry D. Thoreau : Winter. Journal, Feb. 7, 1841.
Virtuous men alone possess friends.
1785 Voltaire : A Philosophical Dictionary. Friendship.
A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends; and that the most liberal professions of good-will are very far from being the surest marks of it.
1786 Georye Washington: Social Maxims.
I can never think of promoting my convenience at the expense of a friend's interest and inclination.
1787 George Washington: Moral Maxims.
It is a |>ernicious complaisance to conceal from our friends mortifying and afflictive truths when it is expedient they should know them.
1788 Thomas Wilson : Maxims of Piety and of
Christianity.
A true friend to a man, is a friend to all his friends.
1789 Wycherley: The Plain. Dealer. Act i. Sc. 1.
FRIENDSHIP —see Adveraity, Character, Christianity, Churches, Companionship, Contamination, Enemies, Friends, Happiness, Hypocrisy, Imagination, Life, Love, Power, Re-action, Virtue.
It is very unlucky for a man to he entangled in a friendship with one who, hy these chanjc.s and vicissitudes of humor, is sometimes amiable, and sometimes odious; and as most men are at some times in admirable frame and disposition of mind, it, should be one of the greatest tasks of wisdom to keep ourselves well when we are so, and never to go out of that which is the agreeable part of our character.
1790 Addixon: The Spectator. No. 68.
A friendship formed in childhood, in youth, — by happy accident at any stage of rising manhood, — becomes the genius that rules the rest of life.
1791 A. lironson Alcott: Tablets. Friendship,
I. Persons.
Friendship is a plant that loves the sun, thrives ill under clouds.
1792 A. lironson Alcott: Concord Days. June. Letters.
In choosing one's friends we must choose those whose qualities are inborn, and their virtues virtues of temperament. To lay the foundations of friendship on borrowed or added virtues, is to build on an artificial soil; we run too many risks by it.
171*0 Amiel: Journal, Dec. 28, 1880. (Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Translator.) | 
