Each friendship is a universe in itself, full of stories, shared secrets and unwavering loyalty.
In this article I would like to emphasize the beauty and depth of these unique relationships. I have collected numerous quotes that shed light on the nature of friendship from different perspectives.
Quotes that help me to appreciate even more deeply the value of the people I call my friends.
True friends are like stars in the sky. They only really light up when it gets dark.
Unknown
Friendship is one soul in two bodies.
Aristotle, philosopher
True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.
David Tyson, writer
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States
A true friend is someone who will drop everything when you’re down, especially when you’re down.
Arnold H. Glasgow, Author
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel, or not feel.
Jim Morrison, musician
True friendship resists time, distance and silence.
Isabel Allende, writer
True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is entitled to the appellation.
George Washington, 1st President of the United States
Friendship is a door between two people. They can creak, they can jam, but it is never locked
Balthasar Gracián, writer
There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
Thomas Aquinas, philosopher and theologian
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art [. . . .] It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
C.S. Lewis, writer
A best friend is someone who tells you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it!
Oprah Winfrey, media mogul
The language of friends is not words but meanings.
Henry David Thoreau, writer and philosopher
I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?
Henry David Thoreau, writer and philosopher
The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.
Elisabeth Foley, Author
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.
Walter Winchell, Journalist
Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never ever the same
Flavia Weedn, writer
Friends show us what we can do; enemies teach us what we must do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet
It is not so much our friend’s help that helps us as our trust in this help.
Epicurus, philosopher
A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.
Elbert Hubbard, writer
The best time to make a friend is before you need it.
Ethel Barrymore, actress
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
Henry David Thoreau, writer and philosopher
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
Charles Caleb Colton, writer
Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. Friends show us what we can do; enemies teach us what we must do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet
Friendship is the fabric of which life is woven.
Unknown
A true friend is someone who is there for you when he’d rather be anywhere else.
Len Wein, comic book author
Friendships are fragile things, and require as much handling as any other fragile and precious thing.
Randolph S. Bourne, essayist
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.
Anaïs Nin, writer
It’s not something you learn in school, but if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you haven’t learned anything.
Muhammad Ali, professional boxer
It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m…
Marlene Dietrich, actress
True friendship outlasts all obstacles and distances.
Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady of the USA
Friendship is a deep harmony.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is.
Jim Morrison, musician
A strong friendship doesn’t need daily conversations or being together. As long as the relationship lives in the heart, true friends never part.
Unknown
You won’t get far in friendship if you’re not prepared to forgive small mistakes.
Jean de La Bruyère, writer
The best mirror is an old friend.
George Herbert, poet
Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.
Charles Kingsley, writer
A friend is what the heart needs, all the time.
Henry Van Dyke, Author
Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.
Baltasar Gracián, writer
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
Khalil Gibran, poet
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer
True friendship exists when silence between two people is comfortable.
David Tyson Gentry
A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.
Elbert Hubbard, writer
True friends are like diamonds – bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style.
Nicole Richie, actor
Friendship is the art of distance, just like the art of closeness.
Simone Weil, philosopher
Nothing is sweeter than an old friendship with new stories.
Aesop, fabulist
Friendship is a spirit in two bodies.
Mencius, philosopher
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery by doubling the joy and sharing the suffering.
Cicero, philosopher
Everyone has a friend in every phase of life. But only a few – and they can count themselves lucky – have the same friend at all stages of their lives.
Unknown
Friends are the brothers and sisters God never gave us.
Mencius, philosopher
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.
Jim Morrison, musician
True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity .
George Washington, politician
Friendship is an art of keeping distance while love is an art of intimacy.
Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet
I paid attention to what I didn’t have and forgot what I did have. This is the infallible way to lose happiness.
Montesquieu, writer
There are friendships that are made in heaven and that you can be sure of on earth.
Robert Louis Stevenson, writer
A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.
Arnold H. Glasgow, Journalist
Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school, but if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you haven’t learned anything.
Muhammad Ali, boxer
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher
There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.
Jane Austen, British writer
Friends are those who know you and still stay with you.
Elbert Hubbard, writer
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
François de La Rochefoucauld, writer
True friendship is a rare and precious gift. Always treat them with care.
Franz Kafka, writer
Friendship is like health; its value is rarely recognized until it is lost.
Charles Caleb Colton, writer
A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.
William Shakespeare, playwright
True friends are never apart; maybe in distance but never in heart.
Molière, playwright
Don’t you know if you love the world, you are God’s enemies? And if you decide to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
Confucius, philosopher
I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.
Helen Keller, American writer
Friends are those who see you crying and say: “Enough, let’s laugh”.
Leonardo da Vinci, artist
A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be.
Sarah Valdez
Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen when you say something. Best friends hear what you don’t say.
Unknown
Friendship doubles our joys and halves our sorrows.
Francis Bacon, philosopher
If you have two friends in your lifetime, you’re lucky. If you have one good friend, you’re more than lucky.
S.E. Hinton, American writer
You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.
A.A. Milne, in Winnie the Pooh
Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.
Ally Condie, in Matched #1
There’s nothing better than a friend, unless it’s a friend with chocolate.
Charles Dickens, writer
Friends are the family we choose.
Jess C. Scott, Author
And we end the list with the family. If you would like to share some more beautiful quotes and aphorisms on the subject of friendship, please leave me a comment.
I neglected my friendships for a long time. In search of money, fame and success. Don’t make the same mistake, be a good friend and you will have the best friendships.
If you want to deepen your friendships (and don’t have a problem with the English language), I can only recommend the“Meeting Friends” cards from the School of Life.
A set of cards with valuable questions to dive right in and learn more about yourself and your friends.
I always take them with me when I meet up with old friends.