For Auld Lang Syne. A Book оf Friendship.

It is a noble and great thing to cover the blemishes and to excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his stains, and to display his perfections; to bury his weaknesses in silence, but to proclaim his virtues upon the housetop.

South.

* * *

E'en as a traveller, meeting with the shade

Of some o'erhanging tree, awhile reposes,

Then leaves its shelter to pursue his way,

So men meet friends, then part with them forever.

Hitopadesa.

* * *

A true friendship is as wise as it is tender.

Thoreau.

* * *

As ships meet at sea a moment together, when words of greeting must be spoken, and then away upon the deepso men meet in this world; and I think we should cross no man's path without hailing him, and if he needs, giving him supplies.

H. W. Beecher.

* * *

A friend is more necessary than either fire or water.

Proverbs.

* * *

A long novitiate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship.

Lord Bolingbroke.

* * *

A beloved friend does not fill one part of the soul, but, penetrating the whole, becomes connected with all feeling.

Channing.

* * *

A reverse of fortune is a mighty sifter of friendship. So is distance. Go a little way out of town, and see how many people will take the trouble to come to see you. Well, we must be patient and forbearing. It is a question of intensity of need. Friendly relations depend upon vicinity amongst other things, and there are degrees; but the best kind of friendship has a way of bridging time and space for all that.

Haweis.

* * *

A female friend, amiable, clever, and devoted, is a possession more valuable than parks and palaces; and without such a muse few men can succeed in life, none be contented.

Lord Beaconsfield.

* * *

A true friend embraces our objects as his own. We feel another mind bent on the same end, enjoying it, ensuring it, reflecting it, and delighting in our devotion to it.

Channing.

* * *

A pretended affection is not easily distinguished from a real one, unless in seasons of distress. For adversity is to friendship what fire is to gold the only infallible test to discover the genuine from the counterfeit. In all other cases they both have the same common marks.

Cicero.

* * *

A little peaceful home bounds all my wants and wishes;

Add to this my book and friendand this is happiness supreme.

Montaigne.

* * *

A true friend is more precious to the soul than all which it inherits beneath the sun.

Irving.

* * *

A friend

Welded into our life is more to us

Than twice five-thousand kinsmen, one in blood.

Euripides.

* * *

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fullness and swelling of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. No receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

Bacon.

* * *

Be true to thy friend. Never speak of his faults to another, to show thy own discrimination; but open them all to him, with candor and true gentleness; forgive all his errors and his sins, be they ever so many; but do not excuse the slightest deviation from rectitude. Never forbear to dissent from a false opinion, or a wrong practice, from mistaken motives of kindness; nor seek thus to have thy own weaknesses sustained; for these things cannot be done without injury to the soul.

Child.

* * *

Be admonished not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship can be.

Emerson.

* * *

A day for toil, an hour for sport,

But for a friend life is too short.

Emerson.

* * *

After a certain age a new friend is a wonder. There is the age of blossoms and sweet budding green, the age of generous summer, the autumn when the leaves drop, and then winter shivering and bare.

Thackeray.

* * *

Bitter and unrelenting enemies often deserve better of us than those friends whom we are inclined to regard as pleasant companions; the former often tell us the truth, the latter never.

Cicero.

* * *

Does friendship really go on to be more pain than pleasure? I doubt it, for even in its deepest sorrows there is a joy which makes ordinary pleasure a very poor, meaningless affair.

Unknown.

* * *

Friendship does not spring up and grow great and become perfect all at once, but requires time and the nourishment of thoughts.

Dante.

* * *

Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for friendship, for friends do not live in harmony, merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for friends to feed and clothe our bodies, neighbors are kind enough for that, but to do the like office to our spirits. For this, few are rich enough, however well disposed they may be.

Thoreau.

* * *

A pure friendship inspires, cleanses, expands, and strengthens the soul.

Alger.

* * *

A friend is he that loves, and he that is beloved.

Hobbe.

* * *

Change, care, nor Time while life endure

Shall spoil our ancient friendship sure.

Lang.

* * *

Every young man is the better for cherishing strong friendships with the wise and good; and he whose soul is knit to one or more chosen associates with whom he can sympathize in right aims and feelings, is thereby the better armed against temptation and confirmed in paths of virtue.

Carlyle.

* * *

Believing hear, what you deserve to hear:

Your birthday, as my own, to me is dear.

Blest and distinguished days! Which we should prize

The first, the kindest, bounty of the skies.

But yours gives most; for mine did only lend

Me to the world, yours gave to me a friend.

Martial.

* * *

Choose for your friend him that is wise and good, and secret and just, ingenious and honest, and in those things, which have a latitude, use your own liberty.

Taylor.

* * *

Friendship is made up of esteem and pleasure; pity is composed of sorrow and contempt: the mind may for some time fluctuate between them, but it can never entertain both at once.

Goldsmith.

* * *

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

Aristotle.

* * *

Fellowship of souls does not consist in the proximity of persons. There are millions who live in close personal contact dwell under the same roof, board at the same table, and work in the same shop between whose minds there is scarcely a point of contact, whose souls are as far asunder as the poles; whilst, contrariwise, there are those separated by oceans and continents, ay, by the mysterious gulf that divides time from eternity, between whom there is a constant intercourse, a delightful fellowship. In truth, we have often more communion with the distant than the near.

Dr. Thomas.

* * *

Friendship must live by faith and not by sight.

Eliot.

* * *

Friends should not be chosen to flatter. The quality we should prize is that rectitude which will shrink from no truth. Intimacies, which increase vanity, destroy friendship.

Channing.

* * *

Favors, and especially pecuniary ones, are generally fatal to friendship; for our pride will ever prompt us to lower the value of the gift by diminishing that of the donor. Ingratitude is an effort to recover our own esteem by getting rid of our esteem for our benefactor, whom we look upon as a sort of tooth-drawer that has cured us of one pain by inflicting another.

Smith.

* * *

Friendship throws a greater lustre on prosperity, while it lightens adversity by sharing in its griefs and anxieties.

Cicero.

* * *

Friendship hath the skill and observation of the best physician; the diligence and vigilance of the best nurse; and the tenderness and patience of the best mother.

Lord Clarendon.

* * *

Friendship! The precious gold of life

By age refined, yet ever new;

Tried in the crucible of time

It always rings of service true.

Friendship! The beauteous soul of life

Which gladdens youth and strengthens age;

May it our hearts and lives entwine

Together on life's fleeting page.

Shaylor.

* * *

Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which strengthens with the setting sun of life.

La Fontaine.

* * *

Friendship, love, and piety, ought to be handled with a sort of mysterious secrecy; they ought to be spoken of only in the rare moments of perfect confidence.

Novalis.

* * *

Few men are calculated for that close connection which we distinguish by the name of friendship, and we well know the difference between a friend and an acquaintance.

Sterne.

* * *

Friendship is the nearest thing we know to what religion is. God is love. And to make religion akin to friendship is simply to give it the highest expression conceivable by man.

Drummond.

* * *

Friendship is the great chain of human society.

Howell.

* * *

Friendship is an allay of our sorrows, the ease of our passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our calamities, the counsellor of our doubts, the charity of our minds, the emission of our thoughts, the exercise and improvement of what we meditate.

Taylor.

* * *

Friendship springs up from sources so subtile and undefinable, that it cannot be forced into particular channels; and whenever the attempt has been made, it has usually been unsuccessful.

Day.

* * *

God wills that we have sorrows here,

And we will share it;

Whisper thy sorrow in my ear,

That I may also bear it.

If anywhere our trouble seems

To find an end,

'Tis in the fairy land of dreams,

Or with a friend.

Tennyson.

* * *

Friendship is a union of spirits, a marriage of hearts, and the bond thereof virtue.

Penn.

* * *

Friendship that makes the least noise is very often the most useful; for which reason I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one.

Addison.

* * *

Friendship, like love, is but a name

Unless to one you stint the flame.

The child, whom many fathers share,

Hath seldom known a father's care.

'Tis thus in friendships; who depends

On many, rarely finds a friend.

Gay.

* * *

Friend is a word of royal tone;

Friend is a poem all alone.

From the Persian.

* * *

Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love. It is well worthwhile to learn how to win the heart of man the right way. Force is of no use to make or preserve a friend, who is an animal that is never caught and tamed but by kindness and pleasure. Excite them by your civilities, and show them that you desire nothing more than their satisfaction; oblige with all your soul that friend who has made you a present of his own.

Socrates.

* * *

He, who gives pleasure, meets with it; kindness is the bond of friendship, and the book of love; he who sows not, reaps not.

* * *

Friendship is the holiest of gifts,

God can bestow nothing more sacred upon us!

It enhances every joy, mitigates every pain.

Everyone can have a friend

Who himself knows how to be a friend.

Teidge.

* * *

In this respect friendship is superior to relationship, because from relationship benevolence can be withdrawn, and from friendship it cannot; for with the withdrawal of benevolence the very name of friendship is done away, while that of relationship remains.

Cicero.

* * *

I want a warm and faithful friend,

To cheer the adverse hour;

Who ne'er to flatter will descend,

Nor bend the knee to power.

A friend to chide me when I'm wrong,

My inmost soul to see;

And that my friendship prove as strong

To him as his to me.

Adams.

* * *

Friendship's true laws are by this rule expressed,

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

Pope.

* * *

Human spirits are only to be drawn together and held together by the living bond of having found something in which they really do agree.

Greenwell.

* * *

He has the substance of all bliss

To whom a virtuous friend is given:

So sweet harmonious friendship is,

Add but eternity, you'll make it heaven.

Norris.

* * *

He who wrongs his friend

Wrongs himself more and ever bears about

A silent court of justice in his breast.

Tennyson.

* * *

Hearts only thrive on varied good,

And he who gathers from a host

Of friendly hearts his daily food,

Is the best friend that we can boast?

Holland.

* * *

I exhort you to lay the foundations of virtue, without which friendship cannot exist, in such a manner that, with this one exception, you may consider that nothing in the world is more excellent than friendship.

Cicero.

* * *

It is a beautiful thing to feel that our friends are God's gifts to us. Thinking of it has made me understand why we love and are loved, sometimes when we cannot explain what causes the feeling. Feeling so makes friendship such a sacred, holy thing!

Porter.

* * *

If my brother, or kinsman, will be my friend, I ought to prefer him before a stranger; or I show little duty or nature to my parents.

And as we ought to prefer our kindred in point of affection, so, too, in point of charity, if equally needing and deserving.

Penn.

* * *

It is equally impossible to forget our friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends that we may go out and meet their ideal cousins!

Thoreau.

* * *

I must feel pride in my friend's accomplishments as if they were mine wild, delicate, throbbing property in his virtues. I feel as warmly when he is praised as the lover when he hears applause of his engaged maiden.

Emerson.

* * *

In very many cases of friendship, or what passes for it, the old axiom is reversed, and like clings to unlike more than to like.

Dickens.

* * *

Hearts are linked to hearts by God. The friend on whose fidelity you can count, whose success in life flushes your cheek with honest satisfaction, whose triumphant career you have traced and read with a heart throbbing almost as if it were a thing alive, for whose honor you would answer as for your own; that friend, given to you by circumstances over which you have no control, was God's own gift.

Robertson.

* * *

If thou neglect thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy love to God.

Quarles.

* * *

I cannot contentedly frame a prayer for myself in particular, without a catalogue for my friends; nor request a happiness, wherein my sociable disposition doth not desire the fellowship of my neighbor.

Browne.

* * *

It's an owercome sooth for age an' youth

And it brooks wi' nae denial,

That the dearest friends are the auldest friends

And the young are just on trial.

There's a rival bauld wi' young an' auld

And it's him that has bereft me;

For the surest friends are the auldest friends

And the maist o' mine hae left me.

There are kind hearts still, for friends to fill

And fools to take and break them;

But the nearest friends are the auldest friends

And the grave's the place to seek them.

Stevenson.

* * *

God divided man into men that they might help each other.

Seneca.

* * *

I sometimes hear my friends complain finely that I do not appreciate their fineness. I shall not tell them whether I do or not. As if they expected a vote of thanks for every fine thing which they uttered or did! Who knows but it was finely appreciated? It may be that your silence was the finer thing of the two…. In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood. Then there can never be an explanation.

Thoreau.

* * *

It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends.

Thackeray.

* * *

It is not becoming to turn from friends in adversity, but then it is for those who have basked in the sunshine of their prosperity to adhere to them. No one was ever so foolish as to select the unfortunate for their friends.

Lucanus.

* * *

It is essential to friendship that there be no labor to pass for more than we are, no effort, no anxiety to hide! If anything be concealed, the constant intercourse of friends will discover it, and one discovery will produce others. The idea that the heart has one secret fold extinguishes affection.

Channing.

* * *

Impatient and uncertain lovers think that they must say or do something kind whenever they meet; they must never be cold. But they who are friends do not do what they think they must, but what they must. Even their friendship is, in one sense, a sublime phenomenon to them.