Friend Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is quite true that I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man usually gives to a friend. Somehow, I had never loved a woman. I suppose I never had time. Perhaps, as Harry says, a really grande passion is the privilege of those who have nothing to do, and that is the use of the idle classes in a country

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many thousands of people have had the experience of finding the first friend, and it is none the less a wonder; as great a wonder (pace the novelists) as first love, or even greater.

The French Revolution gave rise to ideas which led beyond the ideas of the entire old world order. The revolutionary movement which began in 1789... gave rise to the communist idea which Babeuf's friend Buonarroti re-introduced in France after the Revolution of 1830. This idea, consistently developed, is the idea of the new world order.

For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.

G. K. Chesterton

I would absolutely refuse any direct or indirect war service and would try to persuade my friends to do the same, regardless of the reasons for the cause of a war.

Albert Einstein

My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character [as an author], he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed.

I must feel pride in my friend's accomplishments as if they were mine,--and a property in his virtues. I feel as warmly when he ispraised, as the lover when he hears applause of his engaged maiden.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The opinions which we hold of one another, our relations with friends and kinsfolk are in no sense permanent, save in appearance, but are as eternally fluid as the sea itself.

I claim to have been a lifelong and wholly disinterested friend of the British people.

While geography has made us neighbors, tradition has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies—in a vast Alianza para el Progreso. Those whom nature has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

John F. Kennedy

I am truly a "lone traveler" and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart. In the face of all this, I have never lost a sense of distance and the need for solitude.

Albert Einstein

When a worm is suddenly illuminated and dashes like a rabbit into its burrow—to use the expression employed by a friend—we are at first led to look at the action as a reflex one.

Friends are much better tried in bad fortune than in good.

Soldiers — You are about to return to your homes and your friends, after having, as I learn, performed in camp a comparatively short term of duty in this great contest. I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.

Abraham Lincoln

We must therefore... hold them [the British] as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

Thomas Jefferson

There can't be a quarrel without two parties, and I won't be one. I will be a friend to you in spite of you. So now you know what you've got to expect

Charles Dickens

Everybody has always underrated the Russians. They keep their own secrets alike from foe and friends.

Winston Churchill

If you visit your friend, why need you apologize for not having visited him, and waste his time and deface your own act? Visit him now.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

You have not that power you ought to have over him, till he comes to be more afraid of offending so good a friend than of losing some part of his future expectation.

I would rather die having spoken in my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet in law ought any man use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death, if a man is willing to say or do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs deeper than death.

Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

A friend of mine always says, 'Women love me for the man I'm not.'

Compassionate thought is the most precious thing there is. It is something that only we human beings can develop. And if we have a good heart, a warm heart, warm feelings, we will be happy and satisfied ourselves, and our friends will experience a friendly and peaceful atmosphere as well. This can be experienced community to community, country to country, continent to continent.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama