“ It is well worth while 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. ”

“ Life to be rich and fertile must be reinforced with friendship. It is the sap that preserves from blight and withering; it is the sunshine that beckons on the blossoming and fruitage; it is the starlight dew that perfumes life with sweetness and besprinkles it with splendor; it is the music-tide that sweeps the soul, scattering treasures; it is the victorious and blessed leader of integrity's forlorn hope; it is the potent alchemy that transmutes failure into success; it is the hidden manna that nourishes when all other sustenance fails ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the other. Why should I cumber myself with the poor fact that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet.... It is thought a disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited. ”

“ Strange as it may sound, we are sometimes rather disposed to choose our friends from the unworthy than the worthy; for though it is difficult to love those whom we do not esteem, it is a greater difficulty to love those whom we esteem much more than ourselves. A perfect friendship requires equality, even in virtue.
—Smith.
* * * * *
Sincerity, truth, faithfulness, come into the very essence of friendship. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Truthfulness, frankness, disinterestedness, and faithfulness are the qualities absolutely essential to friendship, and these must be crowned by a sympathy that enters into all the joys, the sorrows and the interests of the friend; that delights in all his upward progress, and when he stumbles or falls, stretches out the helping hand, and is tender and patient even when it condemns. ”

“ The best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship is to cast and see how many things there are which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to say "that a friend is another himself." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tell me, gentle traveler, who hast wandered through the world, and seen the sweetest roses blow, and brightest gliding rivers, of all thine eyes have seen, which is the fairest land? "Child, shall I tell thee where nature is more blest and fair? It is where those we love abide. ”

“ What a great blessing is a friend, with a breast so trusty that thou mayest safely bury all thy secrets in it, whose conscience thou mayest fear less than thine own, who can relieve thy cares by his conversation, thy doubts by his counsels, thy sadness by his good humor, and whose very look gives comfort to thee! ”

“ 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. ”

“ What can be more delightful than to have one to whom you can speak on all subjects just as to yourself? Where would be the great enjoyment in prosperity if you had not one to rejoice in it equally with yourself? And adversity would indeed be difficult to endure without some one who would bear it even with greater regret than yourself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The only danger in friendship is that it may end.
—Thoreau.
* * * * *
Of all the heavenly gifts that mortal men commend,
What trusty treasure in the world can countervail a friend?
Our health is soon decayed; goods, casual, light and vain;
Broke have we seen the force of power, and honor suffer stain.
In body's lust man doth resemble but base brute;
True virtue gets and keeps a friend, good guide of our pursuit. ”

“ For the loftiest friendships have no commercial element in them: they are founded on disinterestedness and sacrifices. They neither expect nor desire a return for gift or service. Amid the tireless breaking of the billows on the shores of experience, there is no surer anchorage than a friendship that "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things." ”

“ To live with one's enemies as if they might one day be our friends, and to live with our friends as though they might one day become our enemies, is neither natural to hatred nor consistent with friendship. ”

“ The very ground and gist of a noble friendship is the cultivation in common of the personal inner lives of those who partake in it, their mutual reflection of souls and joint sharing of experience inciting them to a constant betterment of their being and their happiness. ”

“ The friendship which arises from contraries is horrible and coarse, and has often no tie of communion; but that which arises from likeness is gentle, and has a tie of communion, which lasts through life. ”

“ Friendship is a vase, which when it is flawed by heat, or violence, or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To he only an admirer is not to be a friend of a human being. Human nature wants something more, and our perceptions are diseased when we dress up a human being in the attributes of divinity. He is our friend who loves more than admires us, and would aid us in our great work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ True, active, productive friendship consists in keeping equal pace in life, in the approval of my aims by my friend, while I approve his, and thus moving forward together steadily, however much our way of thought and life may vary. ”

“ Beyond all wealth, honor, or even health, is the attachment we form to noble souls; because to become one with the good, generous, and true, is to become in a measure good, generous, and true ourselves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not only does friendship introduce daylight in the understanding out of darkness and confusion of thoughts; it maketh a fair day in the affections from storm and tempests; in consultation with a friend a man tosseth his thoughts more easily ”

“ Seek no friend to make him useful, for that is the negation of friendship; but seek him that you may be useful, for this is of friendship's essence.
—Wallace.
* * * * *
Much certainly of the happiness and purity of our lives depends on our making a wise choice of our companions and friends. Many people seem to trust in this matter to the chapter of accidents. It is well and right, indeed, to be courteous and considerate to every one with whom one is thrown in contact, but to choose them as real friends is another matter.... If our friends are badly chosen they will inevitably drag us down ”

“ Those who want friends to open themselves unto, are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable, which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth grief in halfs. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. ”

“ There is no better medicine for grief than the advice of a good and honored friend. He who, in his sufferings, excites and tries to soothe his mind by wine, though he may have pleasure for a moment, has a double portion of pain afterwards. ”

“ Let this, therefore, be established as a primary law concerning friendship, that we expect from our friends only what is honorable, and for our friends' sake do what is honorable; that we should not wait till we are asked; that zeal be ever ready, and reluctance far from us. ”

“ In both instances the friends are drawn close together and are united by that bond which has been so beautifully written about throughout the ages.
The abstract theorizing of one philosopher can never satisfy the individual in regard to the varied manifestations of friendship, and it is therefore interesting and profitable to note what various writers have said about this world-wide force under the varying conditions of the past and the present. ”