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 worthwhile 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.