The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends. (Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire)
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)
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. (Anais Nin)
There can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom. Friendship loves a free Air, and will not be penned up in straight and narrow Enclosures. It will speak freely, and act so too; and take nothing ill where no ill is meant; nay, where it is, ’twill easily forgive, and forget too, upon small Acknowledgments. (William Penn)
Friendship is the next pleasure we may hope for: and where we find it not at home, or have no home to find it in, we may seek it abroad. It is an union of spirits, a marriage of hearts, and the bond thereof virtue. (William Penn)
We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection. (Jean Paul Richter)
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame with an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. (Albert Schweitzer )
No medicine is more valuable , none more efficacious, none better suited to the cure of our temporal ills than a friend to whom we may turn for consolation in time of trouble, and with whom we may share happiness in time of joy. (Saint Ailred of Rievaulx)
We have no more right to put our discordant states of mind into the lives of those around us and rob them of their sunshine and brightness than we have to enter their houses and steal their silverware. (Julian Seton)
So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend. (Robert Lewis Stevenson )