friend quotes

  •   The world's best moment is a calm hour passed In listening to a friend who can talk well.

    -Abu'l-'Ala   Al-Ma'arri
    c.1000  Luzu'  miyya'  t, stanza 32 (translated by R  A Nicholson in Studies in Islamic Poetry,1921).

  • A friend in power is a friend lost.

    - Henry Brooks Adams
      The Education of Henry  Adams, ch.7.

  • One friend in a lifetime ismuch; two are many; three are hardly possible.Friendship needs a certainparallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

    - Henry Brooks Adams
      The Education of Henry  Adams, ch.20.

  • If all be true that I do think, There are five reasons why men drink, Good wine, a friend, or being dry, Or lest we should be by-and-by, Or any other reason why.

    - Henry Aldrich
      'Five Reasons for Drinking'.

  • La mort ne fait jamais mal. La mort est douce† Ce qui fait souffrir avec certains poisons, certaines blessures maladroites, c'est la vie. C'est le reste de vie. Il faut se confier franchement a'   la mort comme une amie. Death never hurts. Death is sweet† Life is what makes us suffer with its poisons and awkward injuries. That's what remains of life.We must confide freely in death as we would in a friend.

    -Jean Anouilh
    Eurydice, act1.

  • Do n de esta   la patria, amigo? Ni en el corazo  n ni en la saliva. Whereisthe country, my friend? It isnot intheheart or in the saliva.

    -Jose   Mar|  a Arguedas
    El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo ('The Upper and the Lower Fox'), ch.3.

  • L'e"  tre le plus prostitue  , c'est l'e"  tre par excellence, c'est Dieu, puisqu'il est l'ami supre"  me pour chaque individu, puisqu'il est le re  servoir commun, ine  puisable de l'amour. The most prostituted being, the Being par excellence, is God, since he is supreme friend to every individual, since he is the common, inexhaustible reservoir of love.

    - Charles Baudelaire
      Mon coeur mis a'   nu, pt.46.

  • Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 41:9.

  • A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs17:17.

  • A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs18:24.

  • Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemyare deceitful.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs 27:5^6.

  • A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear the Lord shall find him.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Ecclesiasticus 6:16.

  • Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Ecclesiasticus 9:10.

  • I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.

    -William Blake
      Songs of Experience,'A Poison Tree'.

  • Here we have a saying: a good friend is someone who visits you when you are in prison.But a really good friend is someone who comes to hear your lectures.

    - Malcolm Stanley Bradbury
      Rates of Exchange, pt.4, ch.3.

  •    Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there But onlyagony, and that has ending; And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

    - Rupert Chawner Brooke
      'Peace'.

  •    Who's your fat friend?

    - George Bryan called Beau Brummell Brummel
    c.1813  Of the Prince Regent. Remark addressed to his companion, whom the Prince had acknowledged while studiously ignoring Brummell. Quoted in  Jesse Life of George Brummell (1844), vol.1.

  • 'Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels By blood or ink; 'tis sweet to put an end To strife; 'tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, Particularly with a tiresome friend; Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels; Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot.

    -Rochdale
    ^24  Don Juan, canto1, stanza126.

  • Give me the avowed, erect and manly foe; Firm I can meet, perhaps return the blow; But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, Save me, oh, save me, from the candid friend.

    - George Canning
      'New Morality', l.207^8.

  • Writers are always envious, mean-minded, filled with rage and envyat other's good fortune. There is nothing like the failure of a close friend to cheer us up.

    - Peter Carey
      In the Observer,18  Aug.

  • A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stagesfirst an acquaintance, next a mistress, and only then a friend.

    - Anton Chekhov
      Uncle Vanya, act 2.

  • O thou, the friend of man assigned, With balmy hands his wounds to bind, And charm his frantic woe: When first Distress with dagger keen Broke forth to waste his destined scene, His wild unsated foe!

    -William Collins
      Odes on Several Descriptive and  Allegoric Subjects,'Ode to Pity', no.1.

  • Now we know nothing, nothing is richer now Because of all he was.O friend we have loved Must it be thus with you?and if it must be How can men bear laboriously to live?

    - Frances ne  e Darwin Cornford
      'Rupert Brooke'.

  • The man that hails youTom or Jack, And proves by thumps upon your back How he esteems your merit, Is such a friend, that one had need Be very much his friend indeed To pardon or to bear it.

    -William Cowper
      Poems,'Friendship', l.169^74.

  • 'Eternity' is there, We say, as of a station. Meanwhile, he is so near, He joins me in my Ramble Divides abode with me No Friend have I that so persists As this Eternity.

    - Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
    Complete Poems, no.1684 (first published1914).

  • Choose an author as you choose a friend.

    -Wentworth Dillon
      Essay on Translated Verse, l.96.

  • To find a friend one must close one eye. To keep himtwo.

    - (George) Norman Douglas
    Almanac.

  • Fallen from his high estate, And welt'ring in his blood: Deserted at his utmost need By those his former bounty fed; On the bare earth expos'd he lies, With not a friend to close his eyes.

    -John Dryden
      Alexander's Feast, l.78^83.

  • A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

    - RalphWaldo Emerson
    Essays: First Series,'Friendship'.

  • The only reward of virtueisvirtue; theonly way tohavea friend is to be one.

    - RalphWaldo Emerson
    Essays: First Series,'Friendship'.

  • O friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, Read out my words at night, alone: I was a poet, I was young.

    -James Elroy Flecker
      'To a Poet  a ThousandYears Hence'.

  • I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my countryand betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

    - E(dward) M(organ) Forster
    Two Cheers for Democracy,'What I Believe'.

  • Asthe friend of the negro assumes that one man cannot, by right, hold another in bondage, should the friend of woman assume that man cannot, by right, lay even well- meant restrictions on woman.

    - (Sarah) Margaret, Marchioness Ossoli Fuller
      'The Great Lawsuit', in Dial, vol.4,  Jul.

  • England is a great and powerful nation, foremost in human progress, enemy to despotism, the only safe refuge for the exile, friend of the oppressed. If ever England should be so circumstanced as to require the help of anyally, cursed be the Italian who would not step forward with me in her defence.

    - Giuseppe Garibaldi
      Letter,12  Apr.

  • Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.

    - Sir William (Gerald) Golding
      Lord of the Flies, ch.12.

  • I have the most reliable friend that you can have in American politicsready money.

    - Phil (William Philip) Gramm
      On seeking presidential nomination. In the NewYork Times, 23  Apr.

  •    A favourite has no friend!

    -Thomas Gray
      Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes, l.36.

  • Sois donc ami since'  re ou since'  re ennemi, Et ne reste pas tra|"tre et fide'  le a'   demi. Be either a sincere friend or a sincere enemy, And never be half-traitor and half-faithful.

    -Victor Marie Hugo
      Cromwell, act1, sc.1.

  • Greater lovethanthis,hesaid, nomanhaththat a manlay down his wife for his friend.Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters to the university of Oxtail.

    -James Augustine Aloysius Joyce
      Ulysses.

  • The monster was indeed the best friend I could ever have.

    - Boris originally  William Henry Pratt Karloff
    On his success as Frankenstein's monster. Quoted in Connoisseur,  Jan1991.

  • Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined bya hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall payany price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.

    -John F(itzgerald) Kennedy
      Inaugural address, Washington, 20  Jan.

  • Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

    - Martin LutherJr King
    Attributed, collected in The Words of Martin Luther King.

  • Little Friend of all the World.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
    Kim's nickname. Kim, ch.1.

  • I'll trust myself, myself shall be my friend.

    -Thomas Kyd
    c.1589  The Spanish Tragedy, act 3, sc.2.

  • Chacun se dit ami; mais fol qui s'y repose: Rien n'est plus commun que ce nom, Rien n'est plus rare que la chose. Everyone calls himself a friend; foolish is he who believes it: Nothing is more common than the name friend, And nothing is more rare than the real thing.

    -Jean de La Fontaine
      Fables, pt.4, no.17,'Parole de Socrate'.

  • If the husband be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage,if you did not come inonthewife'sside,if youdid not sneak intothehouse in her train, but were an old friend in first habits of intimacy before their courtship was so much as thought on,look about you† Every long friendship, every old authentic intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with their currency, as a sovereign Prince calls in the good old money that was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will let it pass current in the world.

    - Charles Lamb
      Essays of Elia,'A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People'.

  • I remember summing up what I took to be ourdestiny, in conversation with my best friend at Chartres, by the formula,'Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die.'

    - C(live) S(taples) Lewis
      Surprised by  Joy, ch.4.

  • Dark as the Grave Wherein my Friend is Laid.

    -William Lowndes
    Title of novel, published posthumously (1968).

  • 'My father is deceased.Come,Gaveston, And share the kingdom with thy dearest friend.' Ah, words that make me surfeit with delight! What greater bliss can hap to Gaveston Than live and be the favourite of a king? Sweet prince, I come; these, these thyamorous lines Might have enforced me to have swum from France, And, like Leander, gasped upon the sand, So thou would'st smile, and take me in thy arms.

    - Christopher Marlowe
    c.1591  Gaveston is reading a letter from King Edward. Edward II (published1594), act1, sc.1.

  • I see you belong to the category, old friend, which will havethingsintheround, whichdoesloveanend, causes, the balance sheet drawn and equalled.But, mydear Gid, the world is not like thatit is untidy, there are no reasons, the final sum never balances.

    -Timothy Mo
      An Insular Possession, ch.44.

  • L'ami du genre humain n'est point du tout mon fait. I have no use at all for the friend of mankind.

    -Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molie'  re
      Le misanthrope, act1, sc.1.

  • My best friend is myself† It's a lifelong relationship and divorce will never come into it.

    -Morrissey full name Steven Patrick Morrissey
      In the Observer,15 Sep. US    inventor    and    painter,    who    demonstrated    (1844)    the practicability of an electrical telegraph device to Congress. He had earlier trained as an artist.

  • Nobody sees a flowerreallyit is so smallwe haven't timeand to see takes time like to have a friend takes time† So I said to myself I'll paint what I seewhat the flower is to me, but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking timeto look at itIwill make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

    - Georgia O'Keeffe
    Quoted in Goodrich and Bry Georgia O'Keeffe (1970).

  • 'Strange friend,' I said,'here is no cause to mourn.' 'None,'said the other,'save the undone years, The hopelessness.Whatever hope is yours Was my life also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world.'

    -Wilfred Owen
      'Strange Meeting', collected in Poems (published1920).

  • I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

    -Wilfred Owen
      'Strange Meeting', collected in Poems (published1920).

  • Thus our twin souls in one shall grow, And teach the world new love, Redeem the age and sex, and show A flame fate dares not move: And courting death to be our friend, Our lives, together too, shall end.

    - Katherine ne  e Fowler Philips
      'To Mrs. M. A. at Parting'.

  • How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? Inevery friend we losea part ofourselves, and the best part.

    - Alexander Pope
      Letter to Swift, 5 Dec.

  •    You ain't nothin' but a hound dog cryin'all the time. You ain't nothin' but a hound dog cryin'all the time. Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine.

    - Elvis Aaron Presley
      'Hound Dog' (written byJerry Leiber and Mike Stoller).

  • Take courage, my friend, the devil is dead!

    - Charles Reade
    The Cloister and the Hearth.

  • Farewell Woman, I intend, Henceforth, every night to sit, With my lewd well natured friend, Drinking, to engender wit.

    -JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
    'Love aWoman!', l.9^12 (published1680).

  • For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands.

    - Christina Georgina Rossetti
     Goblin Market and Other Poems,'Goblin Market'.

  • Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend.

    - Christina Georgina Rossetti
      Goblin Market and Other Poems,'Up-Hill'.

  • What really knocksme out isa book that, whenyou'reall done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

    -J(erome) D(avid) Salinger
    The Catcher in the Rye, ch.3.

  • Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.

    -John Singer Sargent
    Attributed.

  • It's weel wi' you gentles, that can sit in the house wi' handkerchers at your een when ye lose a friend; but the like o'us maun to our wark again, if our hearts were beating as hard as my hammer. 724

    - Sir Walter Scott
      Saunders Mucklebackit to Oldbuck.TheAntiquary, ch.34.

  • Your friend the British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Gen Burgoyne to Major Swindon.The Devil's Disciple, act 3.

  •    I never was attached to that great sect, Whose doctrine is that each one should select Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend To cold oblivion.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'Epipsychidion', l.149^53.

  •    The beaten road Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread, Who travel to their home among the dead By the broad highway of the world, and so With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, The dreariest and the longest journey go.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'Epipsychidion', l.154^9.

  • If there is anything to one's praise, it is a foolish vanity to be gratified at it; and, if it is abusewhy one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or other!

    - Richard Brinsley Sheridan
      Sir Fretful Plagiary, of newspaper criticism.The Critic, act1, sc.1.

  • A friend who loved perfection would be the perfect friend, did not that love shut his door on me.

    - Logan Pearsall Smith
    Afterthoughts,'Other People'.

  •    I long for the Person from Porlock To bring my thoughts to an end. I am growing impatient to see him I think of him as a friend.

    - Stevie (Florence Margaret) Smith
      Selected Poems,'Thoughts About the Person from Porlock' (a reference to the'person from Porlock'mentioned in Coleridge's preliminary note to'Kubla Khan').

  •    Thou has been called,O Sleep! the friend of Woe, But 'tis the happy who have called thee so.

    - Robert Southey
      The Curse of Kehama, canto15, stanza12.

  •    The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity; men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend.

    - Robert Southey
      The Life of Nelson, ch.9.

  • My name is Death: the last best friend am I.

    - Robert Southey
      'The Lay of the Laureate', stanza 87.

  • Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me. All I ask, the heaven above, And the road below me.

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
      Songs ofTravel (published1896), no.1,'TheVagabond', stanza 4.

  • I do wish we could chat longer but I'm having an old friend for dinner.

    -Ted Tally
      Anthony Hopkins as Dr Hannibal Lecter ('Hannibal the Cannibal') in The Silence of the Lambs.

  • Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet,O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live.

    -Tennyson
      The Princess, pt.7, added song, stanza 2.

  • Never yet Was noble man but made ignoble talk. He makes no friend who never made a foe.

    -Tennyson
      Idylls of the King,'Lancelot and Elaine', l.1081^2.

  • If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of.Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

    -Tennyson
      Idylls of the King,'The Passing of Arthur', l.414^23.

  • We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.God is the friend of silence. See how naturetrees, flowers, grassgrows in silence; see the stars, themoon and thesun, how they move insilence† We need silence to be able to touch souls.

    -Bojaxhiu
      A Gift for God,'Willing Slaves to theWill of God'.

  • It takes yourenemyand your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.

    - Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens Twain
      Following the Equator, ch.45.

  • Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.

    - Gore originally Eugene Luther Vidal,Jr Vidal
      In the SundayTimes Magazine,16 Sep.

  • It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.Charlotte was both.

    - E(lwyn) B(rooks) White
      Charlotte'sWeb, ch.22.

  • Even so for me a vision sanctified The sway of death; long ere my eyes had seen Thy countenancethe still rapture of thy mien When thou, dear Sister! wert become death's bride: No trace of pain or languor could abide That changeage on thy brow was smoothedthy cold Wan cheek at once was privileged to unfold A loveliness to living youth denied. Oh! if within me hope should e'er decline, The lamp of faith, lost Friend! too faintly burn; The may that heaven-revealing smile of thine, The bright assurance, visibly return: And let my spirit in that power divine Rejoice, as, through that power, it ceased to mourn.

    -William Wordsworth
      'November1836', complete poem (published1837).

  •   'Tis ashard tobe a good fellow, a good friend, and a lover of women, as 'tistobe agood fellow, agood friend, and a lover of money.

    -William Wycherley
      The CountryWife, act1, sc.1.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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