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Harald Sverre Olsen
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Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more people. It can be taken to mean a supportive relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection.

Sourced

  • The blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
    • Dinah Craik, in A Life for a Life (1859)
    • Since the 1930s this has also been published in many paraphrased forms, often uncredited to Craik, including:
      A friend is one
      To whom one may pour out all
      The contents of one's heart
      Chaff and grain, together,
      Knowing that the gentlest of hands
      Will take and sift it,
      Keep what's worth keeping
      And blow the rest away.

  • A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.

  • Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
    • The Bible, Proverbs 27:6 (NASB)


  • A friend in need is a friend indeed.
    • Scots proverb, as published in Beauties of Allan Ramsay: Being a Selection of the Most Admired Pieces of that Celebrated Author, viz. The Gentle Shepherd; Christ's Kirk on the Green; The Monk, and the Miller's Wife; with his valuable collection of Scots Proverbs (1815), "Scots Proverbs" Ch. 1; also quoted in Pure Morning, a song by Placebo.

  • A friend loves at all times, and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.
    • The Bible, Proverbs 17:17 (NRSV)

  • A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
    • Proverbs 18:24, The Bible (New International Version)

  • It is amazing how you can surround yourself with so many people you can call friends, and yet actually only have one or two real ones.
    • Jerry Grant Blakeney

  • 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.

  • A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter;
    he who finds one finds a treasure.
    A faithful friend is beyond price,
    no sum can balance his worth.
    • Sirach 6:14-15 (The New American Bible)

  • Friendship is not for merriment but for stern reproach when friends go astray.

  • He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
    • Ali ibn Abi Talib, A Hundred Sayings

  • If you should die before me, ask if you could bring a friend.


  • I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them them that keep thy precepts.

  • Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success — yours or his.
    • Franklin P. Jones, Saturday Evening Post, 29 November 1953

  • The world has lost greater Men, But never a greater friend as such.

  • Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
    And say my glory was I had such friends.

  • Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
    • Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, 1923

  • One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and more symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.


  • Le sort fait les parents, la choix fait les amis.
    Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends.

  • When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

  • Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
    • The Bible, Hebrews 13:2

  • Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
    • Attributed to Sun Tzu, may also be an interpretation of text contained in The Prince

  • Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up."
    • The Bible, Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

  • Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
    • The Bible, John 15:13

  • "But remember! when it comes to friends, it's not how much time you spend with them, just how you spend it!"

  • To like and dislike the same things, that is indeed true friendship.

  • A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart's. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back -- it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.
  • The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment. Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined. One cannot dance well unless one is completely in time with the music, not leaning back to the last step or pressing forward to the next one, but poised directly on the present step as it comes. Perfect poise on the beat is what gives good dancing its sense of ease, of timelessness, of the eternal.

Old friends

  • Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.
    • Selden, Table Talk, "Friends", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

  • Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things,—old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.
    • Francis Bacon, Apothegms, No. 97, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

  • Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!—Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appeared to be best in these four things.
    • Melchior de Santa Cruz, Floresta Española de Apothegmas o sentencias, etc., ii. 1, 20, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

  • What find you better or more honourable than age? Take the preheminence of it in everything,—in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree.
    • Shackerley Marmion (1602–1639), The Antiquary, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

  • I love everything that's old,—old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
    • Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, act i, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
  • 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.

  • 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 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.

  • Friendship is a cadence of divine melody melting through the heart.
    • Charles Mildway, p. 255.

  • 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.
    • M. Hulburd, p. 255.

Unsourced

  • In the word FRIEND, each alphabet stand for something: F for fair, R for real, I for intelligent, E for eligible, N for near and D for dear.

  • A good friend will bail you out of jail and lecture you about how you messed up. A great friend will be sitting right next to you laughing about it saying "damn, we really screwed up!"

  • If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.
    • Winnie the Pooh


  • Someone has said that we should refrain from speaking of another's faults until we are sure that we have none of our own.
    • Reverend Canon Peter Bertram

  • Life without a friend is death without a witness.
    • [Spanish Proverb]

  • My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.

  • My father always used to say that, when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.

  • My friend, if I could give you one thing, I would give you the ability to see yourself as others see you... then you would realize what a truly special person you are.
    • Barbara A. Billings

  • No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever.

  • One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

  • The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for.

  • True friends are a reward, leaving them is the penalty of life.
    • Faryal Khan Kharal

  • True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.

  • True wealth can not be found in your bank account. It can only be found in those you call friend. Those with whom you share your deepest feelings. And those who accept you for who you really are.
    • Mary Vandergrift

  • In giving advice seek to help, not to please, your friend.


  • Involvement with people is always a very delicate thing — it requires real maturity to become involved and not get all messed up.
    • Bernard Cooke

  • I realized that the impossible stands for three things: the ghoul, the phoenix, and the loyal friend.
    • Safi el-Din el-Hilli

  • It is a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his.

    1. Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
    2. A true friend stabs you in the front.
    3. Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

  • Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.
    Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
    Walk beside me and be my friend.

  • Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.

  • Friends hold both the power to excel your life, or destroy it.
    • Adam Murphy

  • Go slowly to the entertainments of thy friends, but quickly to their misfortunes.
    • Chilo


  • A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else.

  • Your friend is that man who knows all about you, and still likes you.

  • 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.

  • A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.
    • Donna Roberts

  • Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

  • Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one's self and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.
    • Thomas Hughes

  • I have lost friends, some by death, others through sheer inability to cross the street.


  • You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you.
    • Dale Carnegie

  • People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
    • Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

  • In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.
    • J. Churton Collins

  • Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.
    • Octavia Butler

  • True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.
    • D.T. Gentry

  • And when somebody knows you well, well there's no comfort like that. And when somebody needs you, well there's no drug like that.
    • Heather Nova

  • There's the people you've known forever. Who like...know you...in this way, that other people can't. Because they've seen you change; they've let you change.
    • My So Called Life

  • The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.

  • Yes'm, old friends is always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of.

  • True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

  • Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that gives value to survival.
    • C.S. Lewis

  • Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.


  • Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.

  • The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers, and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.
    • Goethe

  • We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over. So in a series of acts of kindness there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over.

  • I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.
    • Robert Brault

  • A true friend is one soul divided into two people.

  • The road to a friend's house is never long.
    • Danish proverb

  • Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.
    • Czech proverb

  • There are three friends in this world -- courage, sense, and insight.
    • African proverb

  • To attract good fortune spend a new penny on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.

  • A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your success.
    • Doug Larson

  • A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.

  • Friends never betray you, only people you thought were your friends.
    • T.Mike Runger

  • Friendship is like pee in your pants. Everyone can see it's there, but only you can feel the true warmth.
    • Unknown

  • A true friend is one, who sits next to you without talking, who makes you feel comfortable.
    • Sundeep Reddy

  • Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

  • Friends are those who you believe are closer to you, but never nearer to you...

  • There is no stronger bond of friendship than a mutual enemy.
    • Frankfort Moore

  • If you can’t insult your friends, who can you insult?
    • Swami Raj

  • True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable.
    • David Tyson Gentry

  • Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.
    • Ed Howe

  • Love is rarer than genius itself. And friendship is rarer than love.

  • friendship is freedom.
    • sonicX
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