Quotations about:
    friends


Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.


“In society,” M… would say, “you have three sorts of friends: those who love you, those who couldn’t care less about you, and those who hate you.”

«Dans le monde, disait M…, vous avez trois sortes d’amis: vos amis qui vous aiment, vos amis qui ne se soucient pas de vous, et vos amis qui vous haïssent.»

Nicolas Chamfort
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionnée], Part 2 “Characters and Anecdotes [Caractères et Anecdotes],” ch. 8 (1795) [tr. Parmée (2003), ¶343]
    (Source)

(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

“In the world,” remarked some one to me, “you have three kinds of friends: the friends who love you, the friends who do not trouble their heads about you, and the friends who hate you.”
[tr. Hutchinson (1902)]

M— said, "In society you have three kinds of friends: your friends who are fond of you, your friends who don’t care either way, and your friends who detest you."
[tr. Merwin (1969)]

"In the world," said M..., you have three sorts of friends: the friends who love you; the friends who don't care about you, and the friends who hate you."
[tr. Pearson (1973)]

You have three sorts of friend in polite society, M— used to say. Friends who are fond of you; friends who are unconcerned about you; friends who detest you.
[tr. Dusinberre (1992)]

"There are three sorts of friends in high society," M— used to say. "Friends who are fond of you, friends who don't care about you, and friends who detest you."
[tr. Dusinberre (1992), "Sampler"]

 
Added on 2-Oct-23 | Last updated 2-Oct-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Chamfort, Nicolas

Laugh at your Friends, and if your Friends are sore;
So much the better, you may laugh the more.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet
Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue 1, ll. 55-56 (1738)
    (Source)
 
Added on 21-Sep-23 | Last updated 21-Sep-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Pope, Alexander

When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

(Other Authors and Sources)
Japanese proverb
 
Added on 5-Oct-21 | Last updated 5-Oct-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by ~Other

The question was once put to him, how we ought to behave to our friends; and the answer he gave was, “As we should wish our friends to behave to us.”

[ἐρωτηθεὶς πῶς ἂν τοῖς φίλοις προσφεροίμεθα, ἔφη, “ὡς ἂν εὐξαίμεθα αὐτοὺς ἡμῖν προσφέρεσθαι.”]

Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher
Attributed in Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers [Vitae Philosophorum], Book 5, sec. 11 [tr. Yonge (1853)]
    (Source)

(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:

To the question how we should behave to friends, he answered, "As we should wish them to behave to us."
[tr. Hicks (1925), sec. 21]

When asked how we should act towards friends, he said “as we would pray they act towards us!”
[tr. @sentantiq (2016)]

When asked how we should behave to friends, he said, "As we would wish them to behave to us."
[tr. Mensch (2018)]

 
Added on 21-Sep-21 | Last updated 21-Sep-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Aristotle

Dear George:
Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.
Thanks for the wings!
Love, Clarence.

Frank Capra 1897-1991) Italian-American film director, producer, writer [b. Francesco Rosario Capra]
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) [with Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett]
    (Source)
 
Added on 18-Dec-20 | Last updated 18-Dec-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Capra, Frank

And bad luck reveals those who are not real friends, but just happen to be so because of utility.

[ἡ δ᾽ ἀτυχία δηλοῖ τοὺς μὴ ὄντως [20] ὄντας φίλους, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ χρήσιμον τυχόντας.]

Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher
Eudemian Ethics [Ἠθικὰ Εὐδήμεια], Book 7, ch. 2 / 1238a.19-20 [tr. Reeve (2021)]
    (Source)

(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends, but friends only for some accidental utility.
[tr. Solomon (1915)]

Misfortune shows those who are not friends really but only because of some casual utility.
[tr. Rackham (1981)]

But misfortune shows those who are friends not really but because of chance utility.
[tr. Simpson (2013)]

 
Added on 4-Dec-20 | Last updated 19-Jul-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Aristotle

Most artists, ashamed of their need for encouragement, try to carry their work to term like a secret pregnancy. … We bunker in with our projects, beleaguered by our loneliness and the terrible secret that we carry: We need friends to our art. We need them as desperately as friends to our hearts. Our projects, after all, are our brainchildren, and what they crave is a loving extended family, a place where “How’d it go today?” can refer to a turn at the keys or the easel as easily as a turn in the teller’s cage.”

Julia Cameron (b. 1948) American teacher, author, filmmaker, journalist
“Taking Heart,” The Sound of Paper (2005)
    (Source)
 
Added on 10-Sep-20 | Last updated 10-Sep-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Cameron, Julia

Continuous association with base men increases a disposition to crime.

[Φαύλων ὁμιλίη συνεχὴς ἕξιν κακίης συναύξει.]

Democritus (c. 460 BC - c. 370 BC) Greek philosopher
Frag. 184 (Diels) [tr. Freeman (1948)]
    (Source)

Cited in Diels as "184. (194 N.)"; collected in Joannes Stobaeus (Stobaios) Anthologium II, 31, 90.

Alternate translations:

  • "Frequent association with the wicked increases a disposition to vice." [tr. Barnes (1987)]
  • "Associating with scoundrels frequently increases the possession of wickedness." [tr. @sententiq (2020), Fr. 234]
  • "By associating with scoundrels, you will turn out a scoundrel"
  • "Continuous association with the wicked increases bad character."
 
Added on 26-Jun-20 | Last updated 23-Feb-21
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Democritus

In politics you have no friends, only allies.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
(Attributed)

A frequent maxim of Kennedy's.
 
Added on 29-May-20 | Last updated 29-May-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Kennedy, John F.

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.
 
Added on 29-May-20 | Last updated 29-May-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Moliere

[Tolerance] carries on when love gives out, and love generally gives out as soon as we move away from our home and our friends.

E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“The Unsung Virtue of Tolerance,” radio broadcast (Jul 1941)
    (Source)

Published as "Tolerance," Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
 
Added on 19-Feb-20 | Last updated 19-Feb-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Forster, E. M.

Animals are such agreeable friends — they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
“Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story,” ch. 7, Scenes of Clerical Life (1857)
    (Source)
 
Added on 24-Mar-19 | Last updated 24-Mar-19
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Eliot, George

Man has three friends on whose company he relies. First, wealth — which goes with him only while good fortune lasts. Second, his relatives — they go only as far as the grave and leave him there. The third friend, his good deeds, go with him beyond the grave.

The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
(Attributed)

I could not find an actual citation for this quotation, but the story (the explanation of a parable, in which a man is summoned before a king, and while his dearest friend will not go with him, and his second best friend will only go to the palace gates, his least-loved friend goes with him before the throne) shows up with different translation in multiple sources:
  • The Talmud: SelectionsPart 5 "Civil and Criminal Laws -- the Holy Days" - "The Day of Atonement" [tr. Polano (1876)].
  • Isaac Aboav, Lamp of Light [Menorat Hamoar] [14th C], Fifth Lamp "Teshuvah," Sec. 2 [ch. 3]  in Leonard Kravitz and Kerry Olitzky, <i>Journey of the Soul: Traditional Sources on the</i> Teshuvah (1995).
  • Talmudic and Other Legends [tr., comp. Weiss (1888 ed.), "Man's Three Friends" (Pirke R. Eliezer).
 
Added on 15-Jun-17 | Last updated 15-Jun-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Talmud

When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

(Other Authors and Sources)
Japanese proverb
 
Added on 21-Mar-17 | Last updated 21-Mar-17
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by ~Other

I have had playmates, I have had companions;
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days —
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) Welsh-English essayist
“Old Familiar Faces” (1798)
 
Added on 20-Oct-16 | Last updated 20-Oct-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Lamb, Charles

Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends.

Jacques Delille (1738-1813) French poet, translator
“Malheur et Pitié,” Canto 1 (1803)
 
Added on 3-Oct-16 | Last updated 3-Oct-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Delille, Jacques

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.)
 
Added on 22-Sep-16 | Last updated 22-Sep-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Hood, Edwin Paxton

We are as liable to be corrupted by our books as by our companions.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) English novelist, dramatist, satirist
“A Fragment of a Comment on Lord Bolingbroke’s Essays” (1755)
 
Added on 8-Sep-16 | Last updated 8-Sep-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Fielding, Henry

That is what trust is, you know: if we never had secrets from our friends and loved ones, there would never be any need for them to trust us.

Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Orca [Kiera] (1996)
 
Added on 30-Jul-16 | Last updated 30-Jul-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Brust, Steven

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.

Francis Quarles (1592-1644) English poet
Enchyridion, Book 2, ch. 24 (1641)
    (Source)
 
Added on 13-Jun-16 | Last updated 13-Jun-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Quarles, Francis

Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn “reasonable” and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
It Can’t Happen Here (1935)
 
Added on 24-Nov-15 | Last updated 24-Nov-15
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Lewis, Sinclair

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, “I told you so,”
Utter’d by friends, those prophets of the past,
Who, ‘stead of saying what you now should do,
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last.

Lord Byron
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Don Juan, Canto 14, st. 50 (1824)
    (Source)
 
Added on 11-Nov-15 | Last updated 12-Jan-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Byron, George Gordon, Lord

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)]
 
Added on 27-Jul-15 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Twain, Mark

Our companions please us less from the charms we find in their conversation than from those they find in ours.

Fulke Greville (1554-1628) 1st Baron Brooke; Elizabethan poet, dramatist, and statesman
Maxims, Characters and Reflections, 98 (1757 ed.)
 
Added on 20-Oct-14 | Last updated 20-Oct-14
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Greville, Fulke

But this truth from long experience I assert, that he who has the most friends and the fewest enemies, is the strongest; will rise the highest with the least envy; and fall, if he does fall, the gentlest, aud the most pitied.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #293 (11 Nov 1752)
    (Source)
 
Added on 30-Sep-14 | Last updated 10-Oct-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Chesterfield (Lord)

Being honest may not get you many friends, but it’ll always get you the right ones.

John Lennon (1940-1980) English rock musician, singer, songwriter
(Attributed)

Frequently attributed to Lennon, but with no actual source ever provided.
 
Added on 24-Jul-14 | Last updated 24-Jul-14
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , ,
More quotes by Lennon, John

I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching — they are your family.

Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Proven Guilty (2006)
 
Added on 18-Mar-14 | Last updated 18-Mar-14
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , ,
More quotes by Butcher, Jim

Hee that lies with the dogs, riseth with fleas.

George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 343 (1640 ed.)
    (Source)
 
Added on 2-Sep-10 | Last updated 19-Jan-24
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by Herbert, George

I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me.

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 2: The Two Towers, Book 3, ch. 4 “Treebeard” [Treebeard] (1954)
    (Source)
 
Added on 10-Jul-09 | Last updated 2-Feb-23
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , ,
More quotes by Tolkien, J.R.R.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American poet, memoirist, activist [b. Marguerite Ann Johnson]
Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, ch. 2 “Passports to Understanding” (1993)
    (Source)
 
Added on 21-May-09 | Last updated 23-May-20
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Angelou, Maya

It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confidence of their help.

Epicurus (341-270 BC) Greek philosopher
The Vatican Sayings

Alt. trans.: "It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us."
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 20-Jan-19
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Epicurus

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)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 13-Oct-14
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Johnson, Samuel

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“The Trumpet of Conscience,” Steeler Lecture (Nov 1967)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 7-Dec-15
Link to this post | 1 comment
Topics: , , ,
More quotes by King, Martin Luther

Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things — old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Apothegms, # 97 (1624)

See Alfonso X.

 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 16-May-16
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , , , ,
More quotes by Bacon, Francis

To be glad of life because it gives you to chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars — to be satisfied with your possessions but not content with yourself until you have made the best of them — to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice — to be governed by you admirations rather than by your disgusts — to covet nothing that is your neighbors except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners — to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; to spend as much time as you can in God’s out-of doors — these are the little guideposts on the foot-path to peace.

Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) American clergyman and writer
“The Foot-path to Peace,” Tacoma Times (1 Jan 1904)
    (Source)

Often shortened to: "Be glad for life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to look up at the stars."
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 7-Mar-22
Link to this post | 2 comments
Topics: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
More quotes by Van Dyke, Henry

Don’t be dismayed at good-byes.
A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes,
is certain for those who are friends.

Richard Bach (b. 1936) American writer
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, ch. 18, epigraph (1977)
    (Source)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 29-Nov-22
Link to this post | No comments
Topics: , , , ,
More quotes by Bach, Richard