—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 starWhich 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 awayE'en when misfortune's cloud begins to lower.Into life's bitter cup true friendship dropsBalsamic 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 withfriendships.
—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 throwO'er ardent minds and faithful heartsA chain whose charmed links so blend,That the light circlet but impartsIts 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 proveA 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 wrongsOf 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 bosomIs the inmost cave of our own mindWhere we sit from the wide gaze of dayAnd 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 desireTo 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 retireTo 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 meetingWith many that come nigh;We nod the head in greetingTo many that go by.But welcome through the gatewayOur few old friends and true;The hearts leap up and straightwayThere'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 trueTo one another! For the world which seemsTo 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 plainSwept 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 useTo the support and comfort of the worldThan 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 meFar, far beyond whatever I can pay.Oft have I proved the labors of thy love,And the warm efforts of the gentle heartAnxious to please. O! when my friend and IIn some thick wood have wander'd heedless on,Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us downUpon 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 thrushMended his song of love; the sooty blackbirdMellow'd his pipe, and soften'd every note;The eglantine smell'd sweeter, and the roseAssumed a dye more deep.O! then the longest summer's daySeem'd too, too much in haste: still the full heartHad not imparted half: 'tis happinessToo 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'slife.
—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 findHe 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 droppedInto my life that had some sweetness in it,For all the golden hours when friendship metAnd 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 lookFrom loving eyes; for every smile or wordThat gladdened me; for subtle influenceThat 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 breatheSome 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 mineMay make a life the sweeter,If any little care of mineMay make a friend's the fleeter,If any life of mine may easeThe burden of another,God give me love and care and strengthTo help my toiling brother.
* * * * *
If you have a friend worth loving,Love him. Yes, and let him knowThat you love him, ere life's eveningTinge his brow with sunset glow;Why should good words ne'er be saidOf a friend till he is dead?
—Unknown.
Old books, old wine, old Nankin blue,All things, in short, to which belongThe 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 griefBut that I went without it, never cameHeart hungry but you fed me,And gave the sorrow solace and relief.
I never left you but I took awayThe love that drew me to your side again,Through the wide door that never could remainQuite 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 merryWise face, and though the sky stay dim,The very light of day, the verySun'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 tellOn clover-scented afternoon,Is friendship that has lived for yearsThrough fortune, failure, and through tears.
Though he who wears it sacredlyBe swarted like the rafters areThat shelter him, eternityMay hold few jewels half so rare!And God will find for such a friendSome 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 showWhere fruit with brambles grow;With warmth enough to feedThe grain of daily need.
—Unknown.
* * * * *
Only—but this is rare—When a beloved hand is laid in ours,When jaded with the rush and glareOf the interminable hours,Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,When our world-deafened earIs 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 forgetMy 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 doubtMy oracles; my wings in high pursuit.Oh, I remember, and will ne'er forgetOur 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 hopeExulting, 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 goldIs 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 returningBack to their springs like the rain,Shall fill them full of refreshment;That which the fountain sends forthReturns 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 weatherIs fine and warm, may then be heardChirping 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 wayWhich 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 espyThe 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.