The art of conversation, or the qualification for a good companion, is a certain self-control, which now holds the subject, now lets it go, with a respect for the emergencies of the moment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1854)
(Source)
Reprinted in Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1820–1872, Vol. 3 (1912).
Quotations about:
company
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Serious artist or weekend amateur, it’s more fun cooking for company in company.
Julia Child (1912-2004) American chef and writer
Julia Child & More Company, Introduction (1979)
(Source)
Cry with me;
for sharing tears with others is relief in hardship.[συνάλγησον, ὡς ὁ κάμνων
δακρύων μεταδοὺς ἔχει
χουφότητα μόχϑων.]Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Andromeda [Ἀνδρομέδα], Frag. 119 (TGF) (412 BC)
(Source)
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translation.
Come, let us weep together; for the unhappy
Find social tears their poignant griefs assuage.
[tr. Wodhull (1809)]
The company of just and righteous men is better
than wealth and a rich estate.[κρεῖσσον δὲ πλούτου καὶ βαϑυσπόρου χϑονὸς
ἀνδρῶν δικαίων χἀγαϑῶν ὁμιλίαι]
One person by himself is not a complete human being.
Northrop Frye (1912-1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist
The Educated Imagination, Talk 1 “The Motive for Metaphor” (1963)
(Source)
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late.Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) German-American author, poet
“Oh Yes,” You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)
(Source)
More businesses die of indigestion than starvation.
David Packard (1912-1996) American electrical engineer, businessman, government official
(Misattributed)
The quote is frequently attributed to Packard, but actually he (anonymously) quoted in his book, The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company (1995): "Wells Fargo sent a retired engineer to visit us. I spent a full afternoon with him and I have remembered ever since some advice he gave me. He said that more businesses die of indigestion than starvation. I have observed the truth of that advice many times since then."
Variants of the saying include "entrepreneurs," "companies," and "start-ups" in place of "businesses." See here for more information.
A system must be managed. It will not manage itself. Left to themselves in the Western world, components become selfish, competitive, independent profit centres, and thus destroy the system. The secret is cooperation between components toward the aim of the organization. We can not afford the destructive effect of competition.
W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993) American management consultant, educator
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education, ch. 3 “Introduction to a System” (1993)
(Source)
The presence of people we like gives a marvelous relish to our pleasures.
[C’est un merveilleux assaisonnement aux plaisirs qu’on goûte que la présence des gens qu’on aime.]
Molière (1622-1673) French playwright, actor [stage name for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin]
Le Misanthrope, Act 5, sc. 4 (1666) [tr. Page (1913)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "It is a wonderful seasoning of all enjoyments to think of those we love." [tr. Wormeley (1894)]
Original French.
Animals are a compromise between being alone and being with people.
Lillian M. Roberts (contemp.) American author, veterinarian
Riding for a Fall (1996)
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company,
That fears his fellowship to die with us.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 4, sc. 3, l. 37ff [Henry] (1599)
(Source)
Fond as we are of our loved ones, there comes at times during their absence an unexplained peace.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Anne Shaw, But Such Is Life (1931)
Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It is beyond me.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) American writer, folklorist, anthropologist
“How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, The World Tomorrow (May 1928)
(Source)
We can have no better clue to a man’s character than the company he keeps.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 34 (1517) [tr. Thomson (1883)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "There is no better indication of a man's character than the company which he keeps."
No one can be happy in eternal solitude.
Anne Brontë (1820-1849) British novelist, poet [pseud. Acton Bell]
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, ch. 7 “The Excursion” [Helen] (1848)
(Source)
Solitude is naught and society is naught. Alternate them and the good of each is seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1838)
Be as careful of the books you read as of the company you keep, for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.
Edwin Paxton Hood (1820-1885) English nonconformist minister and author
Self-Formation (1858 ed.)
The more you join with people in their joys and their sorrows, the more nearer and dearer they come to be to you.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Tom Sawyer Abroad, ch. 11 (1894)
A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. (1862-1948) American statesman, politician, Supreme Court Justice (1910-1916, 1930-1941)
Address to the YMCA, New York
Quoted in The Homiletic Review (Nov 1907)
Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse. The best means to grow better is to be the worst there.
A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.
Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina (1664-1718) Italian man of letters and jurist
(Attributed)
Sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde.
Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: This is the ideal life.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook [ed. Paine (1935)]
Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
The Spectator #306 (6 Feb 1712)
The bonds that unite another person to ourself exist only in our mind. Memory as it grows fainter relaxes them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we would fain be cheated and with which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we cheat other people and we exist alone. Man is the only creature that cannot emerge from himself, that knows his fellows only in himself; when he asserts the contrary he is lying.
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) French author
Remembrance of Things Past “The Sweet Cheat Gone” (1913-27)
Shared joyse are doubled; shared sorrows are halved.
No good thing is pleasant to possess without friends to share it.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 6 “On Sharing Knowledge,” sec. 4 [tr. Gummere (1918)]
Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 48 (Epigraph) (1897)
He’d been an angel once. He hadn’t meant to Fall. He’d just hung around with the wrong people.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
Among My Books, “Dryden” (1870)
It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 995
Fellowship in woe doth woe assuage.
The strawberry grows underneath the nettle.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 1, sc. 1, l. 63 [Bishop of Ely] (1599)
(Source)
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!Omar Khayyám (1048-1123) Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer
Rubáiyát, 12 [tr. FitzGerald, 4th ed. (1879)]
Alternate trans:Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness - And Wilderness is Paradise enow. [FitzGerald, 11, 1st ed. (1859)]Should our day's portion be one mancel loaf, A haunch of mutton and a gourd of wine Set for us two alone on the wide plain, No Sultan's bounty could evoke such joy. A gourd of red wine and a sheaf of poems — A bare subsistence, half a loaf, not more — Supplied us two alone in the free desert: What Sultan could we envy on his throne? [Graves & Ali-Shah, 11-12 (1967)]Yes, Loved One, when the Laughing Spring is blowing, With Thee beside me and the Cup o’erflowing, I pass the day upon this Waving Meadow, And dream the while, no thought on Heaven bestowing. [Garner, 1.20 (1888)]
I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, ch. 26 (1759)
(Source)
All menʼs misfortunes proceed from their aversion to being alone; hence gambling, extravagance, dissipation, wine, women, ignorance, slander, envy, and forgetfulness of what we owe to God and ourselves.
[Tout notre mal vient de ne pouvoir être seuls: de là le jeu, le luxe, la dissipation, le vin, les femmes, l’ignorance, la médisance, l’envie, l’oubli de soi-même et de Dieu.]
Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 11 “Of Mankind [De l’Homme],” § 99 (11.99) (1688) [tr. Van Laun (1885)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
All men's misfortunes proceed from their inability to be alone, from Gaming, Riot, Extravagance, Wine, Women, Ignorance, Railing, Envy, and forgetting their duty towards God and themselves.
[Bullord ed. (1696)]
All our Misfortunes proceed from an Inability to be alone; from thence come Gaming, Riot, Extravagance, Wine, Women, Ignorance, Railing, Envy, and forgetting God and our selves.
[Curll ed. (1713)]
All Mens Misfortunes proceed from their Aversion to being alone; hence Gaming, Riot, Extravagance, Wine, Women, Ignorance, Railing, Envy and Forgetfulness of God and themselves.
[Browne ed. (1752)]
All our misfortunes proceed from our inability to be alone; hence gaming, dissipation, wine, women, ignorance, slander, envy, neglect of God and ourselves.
[tr. Lee (1903)]
All our troubles spring from our inability to endure solitude: hence come gaming, luxury, dissipation, drink, licentiousness, scandal-mongering, envy, the neglect of oneself and of God.
[tr. Stewart (1970)]
Society is not comfort
To one not sociable.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Cymbeline, Act 4, sc. 2, l. 14ff [Imogen] (1611)
(Source)