Friend Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

We take care of our health; we lay up money; we make our roof tight, and our clothing sufficient; but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of all, -friends?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavour to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.

George Bernard Shaw

Abu Usayd Malik ibn Rabi'a as-Sa'idi said, "Once while we were sitting with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, a man from the Banu Salama came up and asked, 'O Messenger of Allah, is there any devotion to my parents which I can show them after their death?' He said, 'Yes, praying for them, asking forgiveness for them, fulfilling their pledges after them, maintaining ties with relations which are only maintained through them, and honoring any friend of theirs."

You, your families, your friends and your countries are to be exterminated by the common decision of a few brutal but powerful men. To please these men, all the private affections, all the public hopes, all that has been achieved in art, and knowledge and thought and all that might be achieved hereafter is to be wiped out forever.
Our ruined lifeless planet will continue for countless ages to circle aimlessly round the sun unredeemed by the joys and loves, the occasional wisdom and the power to create beauty which have given value to human life.

Bertrand Russell

Why am I always at war with myself? Why have I told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought to have withheld? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside me, in spite of the whispers against her that I hear in my heart?

Charles Dickens

A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy, but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak, as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.

The knight of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.

Friedrich Nietzsche

When we did Cubist paintings [Picasso and Georges Braque, in their early Cubist period in Paris], our intention was not to produce Cubist paintings but to express what was within us. No one laid down a course of action for us, and our friends the poets [a. o. Appolinaire and Cendral] followed our endeavor attentively but they never dictated it to us.

Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.

Leonardo da Vinci

In conclusion I wish to say that in working at the problem here dealt with I have had the loyal assistance of my friend and colleague M. Besso, and that I am indebted to him for several valuable suggestions.

Albert Einstein

The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees, family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that has been condemned.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true.
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

William Shakespeare

The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion; but in mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they think they come under another.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An amorous yearning is a liquor that becomes stronger when decanted into a friend's ear.

But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

The best and greatest winning is a true friend; and the greatest loss is the loss of time.

I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.

My friend wants to get moving and so do I,' Eddie said. 'We've got miles to go yet.' I know that. It's on your face, son. Like a scar.' Eddie was fascinated by the idea of duty and ka as something that left a mark, something that might look like decoration to one eye and disfigurement to another. Outside, thunder cracked and lightning flashed.

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

Arthur Schopenhauer

It comes as a shock at a certain point where you realize no matter how much you love these kids, you can't do it by yourself, that this job of keeping our children safe and teaching them well is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, the help of a community and the help of a nation.
And in that way we come to realize that we bear responsibility for every child, because we're counting on everybody else to help look after ours, that we're all parents, that they are all our children.
This is our first task, caring for our children. It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. That's how, as a society, we will be judged.

The private wound is deepest. O time most accurst, 'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!

William Shakespeare

Chadband:

Why can we not fly, my friends?
[Mr Snagsby:]No wings.

Charles Dickens

"Bosh," he said, "On what else is the whole world run but immediate impressions? What is more practical? My friend, the philosophy of this world may be founded on facts, but its business is run on spiritual impressions and atmospheres."

G. K. Chesterton

Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking." "An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.

Agatha Christie