Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Friendship
Friendship is the Soul’s heaven.
A. Bronson Alcott.—Table-Talk: Home.
It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. If you are angry with a man, or hate him, it is not hard to go to him and stab him with words; but so to love a man that you cannot bear to see the stain of sin upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words—that is friendship. But few have such friends. Our enemies usually teach us what we are, at the point of the sword.
Henry Ward Beecher.—Life Thoughts.
Had friendship lingered, hell could not have been.
Maria Brooks.—Zophiël.
The place where two friends first met is sacred to them all through their friendship—all the more sacred as their friendship deepens and grows old.
Phillips Brooks.—Sermons: The Young and Old Christian.
We want but two or three friends, but these we cannot do without, and they serve us in every thought we think.
Emerson.—Letter to Carlyle, Sept. 17, 1836.
Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
Benjamin Franklin.—Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1735.
Do good to thy friend to keep him, to thy enemy to gain him.
Benjamin Franklin.—Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1734.
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days;
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.
Fitz-Greene Halleck.—On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake.
Have I sinned against God and man, and deeply sinned? Then be more my friend than ever, for I need you more.
Hawthorne.—The Marble Faun, Chap. XXIII.
The new is older than the old;
And newest friend is oldest friend in this,
That, waiting him, we longest grieved to miss
One thing we sought.
Helen Hunt.—My New Friend.
A friend is most a friend of whom the best remains to learn.
Lucy Larcom.—Friend Brook.
Our friends should be our incentives to Right, but not only our guiding, but our prophetic stars. To love by right is much, to love by faith is more; both are the entire love, without which heart, mind, and soul cannot be alike satisfied. We love and ought to love one another, not merely for the absolute worth of each, but on account of a mutual fitness of temporary character.
Margaret Fuller Ossoli.—Finding a Friend, Chap. V.
We cannot expect the deepest friendship unless we are willing to pay the price, a self-sacrificing love.
Peloubet.—Select Notes on the International Lessons: Fourth Quarter, Lesson XV.
Suns or showers
May come between us; silence may part;
The rushing world know not, nor care to know;—
Yet back and forth the flashing secrets go,
Whose sacred, only sésame is,—ours!
Margaret J. Preston.—Sonnet: Ours.
Once let friendship be given that is born of God, nor time nor circumstance can change it to a lessening; it must be mutual growth, increasing trust, widening faith, enduring patience, forgiving love, unselfish ambition, and an affection built before the Throne, that will bear the test of time and trial.
Allan Throckmorton.—Of Friendship.
We are two travellers, Roger and I;
Roger’s my dog.
J. T. Trowbridge.—The Vagabonds.
A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends; and that the most liberal professions of good-will are very far from being the surest marks of it.
George Washington.—Social Maxims: Friendship.
True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
George Washington.—Social Maxims: Friendship.
O friends whose hearts still keep their prime,
Whose bright example warms and cheers,
Ye teach us how to smile at Time,
And set to music all his years!
Whittier.—The Laurels.
As often as I came back to his door, his love met me on the threshold, and his noble serenity gave me comfort and peace.
William Winter.—English Rambles, Part II. In Memory of Longfellow, Chap. II.