English Friendship Thoughts

"Friendship is like rivers, and the strand of seas, and the air, common to all the world; but tyrants, and evil customs, wars, and want of love, have made them proper and peculiar"

"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"

"I have friends in Spirit Land,— Not shadows in a shadowy band, Not others but themselves are they, And still I think of them the same As when the Master's summons came"

"I consider beyond all wealth, honor, or even health, is the attachment due to noble souls; because to become one with the good, generous, and true, is to be, in a manner, good, generous, and true yourself"

"If a man does not make new acquaintances, as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair"

"The friendship of high and sanctified spirits loses nothing by death but its alloy; failings disappear, and the virtues of those whose faces we shall behold no more appear greater and more sacred when beheld through the shades of the sepulchre"

"To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage"

"Character is so largely affected by associations that we cannot afford to be indifferent as to who and what our friends are. They write their names in our albums, but they do more, they help make us what we are. Be therefore careful in selecting them; and when wisely selected, never sacrifice them"

"True happiness Consists not in the multitude of friends, But in the worth and choice. Nor would I have Virtue a popular regard pursue: Let them be good that love me, though but few"

"A good man is the best friend, and therefore soonest to be chosen, longest to be retained, and indeed never to be parted with, unless he cease to be that for which he was chosen"

"I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me"

"The wiser a man becomes the more numerous are the men whom he dislikes, only if he is really wise, he does not tell anyone of his dislikes, unless he finds it necessary to cement a friendship with a man (or a woman) by talking about a mutual enemy. There is no stronger bond of friendship than a common enemy"