Quotes About Friendship to Ponder and Share
Welcome to our collection of the very best friendship quotes we could find. We hope you enjoy pondering them. If you do, please share! Wishing you all the most special of friendships in your lives!
Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or a friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis, and between two people of widely different culture the only common basis is the lowest level.
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.
Happiness is understanding that friendship is more precious than mere things, more precious than getting your own way, more precious than being in situations where true principles are not at stake.
Don't make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
Don't make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up." -- Thomas J. Watson.
It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
The biggest ingredient in a best friend is someone whose actions you respect and who you can truly be yourself around.
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.

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.
Forgiveness is that subtle thread that binds both love and friendship. Without forgiveness, you may not even have a child one day.

If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn’t recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself?
Longer Version/[Notes]:
Here’s something to consider: If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn’t recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself? You might say: out of loyalty. Well, loyalty is not identical to stupidity. Loyalty must be negotiated, fairly and honestly. Friendship is a reciprocal arrangement. You are not morally obliged to support someone who is making the world a worse place. Quite the opposite. You should choose people who want things to be better, not worse. It’s a good thing, not a selfish thing, to choose people who are good for you. It’s appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose lives would be improved if they saw your life improve.
We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.
Do not save your loving speeches
For your friends till they are dead;
Do not write them on their tombstones,
Speak them rather now instead.
There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.
Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.
What men call friendship is only social intercourse, an exchange of favours and good offices; it comes down to a commercial dealing in which self-esteem always expects to profit.
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.
Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.
True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.
A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.

The beginning of a friendship, the fact that two people out of the thousands around them can meet and connect and become friends, seems like a kind of magic to me. But maintaining a friendship requires work. I don't mean that as a bad thing. Good art requires work as well.
Love without humility results in the inclination to act as everyone's parent, humility without love results in the need to be everyone's child, and love with humility results in the desire to be a friend.
Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life -- and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.

A true bond of friendship is usually only possible between people of roughly equal status. This equality is demonstrated in many indirect ways, but it is reinforced in face-to-face encounters by a matching of the posture of relaxation or alertness.

I hate it when people say they're trying to be your friend. You shouldn't have to try to be somebody's friend. Either you like someone or you don't. Either you want them as a friend or not. Making friends isn't like trying for the lead in the school play.
I learned that a real friendship is not about what you can get, but what you can give. Real friendship is about making sacrifices and investing in people to help them improve their lives.

Friendship is something whose depth fits human aspirations and fulfills human possibilities. It has heft to it, as a gold-piece does and a gambling chip does not.
The real test of friendship is: can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?
What men term friendship is merely a partnership with a collection of reciprocal interests, and an exchange of favours -- in fact it is but a trade in which self love always expects to gain something.
It's not that diamonds are a girl's best friend, but it's your best friends who are your diamonds.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
It's not that diamonds are a girl's best friend, but it's your best friends who are your diamonds. It's your best friends who are supremely resilient, made under pressure and of astonishing value. They're everlasting; they can cut glass if they need to.

Where would you be without friends? The people to pick you up when you need lifting? We come from homes far from perfect, so you end up almost parent and sibling to your friends -- your own chosen family. There's nothing like a really loyal, dependable, good friend. Nothing.
Most people are enduring a marginalized isolation. One of the great obstacles to modern friendships is the 'religion of rush.' People are rushing all the time through time. Friendship takes time.
A friend is a beloved mystery; dearest always because he is not ourself, and has something in him which it is impossible for us to fathom. If it were not so, friendship would lose its chief zest.
You don't lose friends because real friends can never be lost. You lose people masquerading as friends and you're better for it.
Every friendship goes through ups and downs. Dysfunctional patterns set in; external situations cause internal friction; you grow apart and then bounce back together.
I think in friendship, you want to be there for your friend, and sometimes you just don't know what to do or the relationship you have with them is not clear enough for you to know what to do.
It's not so much that the old friend is a better friend. It's just that you know the person better, and you know they don't really care if you're acting like a poor, grovelling idiot. They know you would do the same for them.
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.
Happy is the soul that has a friend. Happier is the soul that trusts in the truth of the heart of a friend. Happiest is the soul that knows the solemnity of friendship and honours its laws.
I have no trouble with my enemies. But my goddam friends… they are the ones that keep me walking the floor nights.
Friendship is the purest love.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
Friendship is the purest love. It is the highest form of Love where nothing is asked for, no condition, where one simply enjoys giving.
A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil; but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents every so often -- just to save it from drying out completely.

Friendship true is a vow of care.
A warm embrace when in despair.
A loving presence waiting there
to lift a heart, its burdens bear.
Friendship true is an earnest prayer.
A tongue of praise for one's welfare.
A smile 'mid laughs as light as air,
and thoughtfulness most kind and rare.
Friendship is more than being there for your friends when they need you, it's also allowing your friends to be there for you.

The strong bond of friendship is not always a balanced equation; friendship is not always about giving and taking in equal shares. Instead, friendship is grounded in a feeling that you know exactly who will be there for you when you need something, no matter what or when.
If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump with them, I'd be at the bottom to catch them. Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say.
People who have at least three or four very close friendships are healthier, have higher wellbeing, and are more engaged in their jobs. But the absence of any close friendships can lead to boredom, loneliness, and depression.
Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can't have too many friends because then you're just not really friends.
It is love and friendship, the sanctity and celebration of our relationships, that not only support a good life, but create one. Through friendships, we spark and inspire one another's ambitions.
Because everything of value that we will know in this life comes from our relationships with those around us. Because there is nothing material that measures against the intangibles of love and friendship.
Some friendships are formed by a commonality of interests and ideas: you both love judo or camping or making your own sausage. Other friendships are forged in alliance against a common enemy.

Are not friends and sworn brothers as important as blood-brothers? A true friend will know your heart, and hear the roar of running waters and the distant wind over the mountains in the song of your zither, without any need for you to speak aloud.
Doubtless a good general rule for close friendships, where confidences are freely exchanged, is that what one is not informed about, one may not inquire about.

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.
Stop using the word 'bromance.' Can we please kill that stupid term? We're just friends. It's called friendship!

Everybody understands friendship, and friendship is different than love -- it's a different kind of love. Friendship has more freedom, more latitude. You don't expect your friend to be as you think your friend should be; you expect your friend just to love you as a friend.
I don't believe that there is any true friendship without a bond of honor, and the honor in friendship is the respect you give the other that she also gives you.
Friends are the most important part of your life. Treasure the tears, treasure the laughter, but most importantly, treasure the memories.
Many a person has held close, throughout their entire lives, two friends that always remained strange to one another, because one of them attracted by virtue of similarity, the other by difference.
I think for a lot of people, friendship is a relationship that gets devalued once they move on to what people consider to be more important relationships: once you find a partner or when you have kids.
Men and women can absolutely be friends, and that's what we need to be. Part of the problem is that we aren't friends enough. Our relationships are negotiations, and that is not friendship.
Friends are a weird thing. It seems like they know all about you, but then they don't understand you at all.
Friendship is something that creates equality and mutuality, not a reward for finding equality or a way of intensifying existing mutuality.
You've got troubles, I've got 'em too. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. We'll stick together to see it through cause you've got a friend in me.
At the end of your life, it's friendships, emotions and thoughts that you take with you, rather than what's in your bank account. So, even though people don't have a lot here, they are a lot richer in many ways and we can learn from that.
But when you are looking on anyone as a friend when you do not trust him as you trust yourself, you are making a grave mistake, and have failed to grasp sufficiently the full force of true friendship.
Friendship -- my definition is built on two things: respect and trust. Both elements have to be there and it has to be mutual. You can have respect for someone, but if you don't have trust, the friendship will crumble.
I don't need to go onto Facebook and pretend to have friends I've never even met. To my mind, that kind of destroys the meaning of the word 'friend.' I take exception to that. Because I value and respect friendship.
