50 Inspiring Quotes About Friendship
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The best friendship quotes do more than sound beautiful: they name the trust, honesty, patience, and joy that make a friendship last.
Short Friendship Quotes
“When they are real, they are not glass threads or frostwork, but the solidest thing we know.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“Happy is the house that shelters a friend!”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“Friendship is first, Friendship last.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“I would that I were worthy to be any man’s Friend.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“Friendship is to some extent but a sublime phenomenon to them.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“Regard friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature.”
— Cicero, On Friendship
“Friendship may be thus defined: a complete accord on all subjects human and divine, joined with mutual goodwill and affection.”
— Cicero, On Friendship
Quotes About True Friendship
“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“There must be very two before there can be very one.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“A Friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“It takes two to speak the truth—one to speak and another to hear.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“They cherish each other’s hopes. They are kind to each other’s dreams.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself?”
— Cicero, On Friendship
“Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy?”
— Cicero, On Friendship
“Such friendship enhances prosperity, and relieves adversity of its burden by halving and sharing it.”
— Cicero, On Friendship
Quotes About Friendship That Lasts
“Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that can be joined.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“In true friendship, it is a general and universal heat, and equally tempered, a constant and settled heat.”
— Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship”
“Friendship is enjoyed according as it is desired; it is neither bred, nor nourished, nor increaseth but in jovissance.”
— Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship”
“If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.”
— Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship”
Quotes About Friendship Through Change
“The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“We must be our own before we can be another’s.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“Friendship is, at any rate, a relation of perfect equality.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“We cannot have too many friends; the virtue which we appreciate we to some extent appropriate.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“My Friend is my real brother.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“It is not an idle sympathy and mutual consolation merely, but a heroic sympathy of aspiration and endeavour.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“In the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a second self.”
— Cicero, On Friendship
“The first law of friendship is that we should ask from friends, and do for friends, only what is good.”
— Cicero, On Friendship
Friendship Quotes for Difficult Seasons
“Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.”
— Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship”
“There is no man, that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less.”
— Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship”
“Friendship maketh a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests.”
— Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship”
“A friend is another himself.”
— Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship”
“The only danger in Friendship is that it will end.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“Silence is the ambrosial night in the intercourse of Friends, in which their sincerity is recruited and takes deeper root.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Friends & Friendship”
“The clear indication of virtue, to which a mind of like character is naturally attracted, is the beginning of friendship.”
— Cicero, On Friendship
Quotes to Show Appreciation for a Friend
“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.”
— Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship”
“A friend is far more than himself.”
— Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship”
“If he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.”
— Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship”
“Friendship is nourished by communication.”
— Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship”
“We sought one another long before we met.”
— Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship”
“My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship”
Friendship quotes work best when they match the moment. Use a short line for a card or caption, a reflective passage for a letter, and a simple thank-you when you want the message to sound like you.
For more source-conscious collections, see 50 Quotes About Strength and Resilience, 30 Inspirational Quotes About Language Learning, and 35 Ancient Proverbs From 16 Languages. When you want to share a friendship quote in another language, OpenL can help translate it for a card, caption, or message.
Sources
- The Gift of Friendship — Project Gutenberg — Anthology containing the cited Emerson, Thoreau, Bacon, and Montaigne passages.
- Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson — Project Gutenberg — Original public-domain text of “Friendship.”
- Treatises on Friendship and Old Age — Project Gutenberg — E. S. Shuckburgh’s translation of Cicero’s On Friendship.
- Essays of Michel de Montaigne, Volume 06 — Project Gutenberg — Charles Cotton’s translation of “Of Friendship.”
- Quote Investigator — Reference for checking widely circulated quotations and disputed attributions.
