Part 14

Truthfulness, frankness, disinterestedness, and faithfulness are the qualities absolutely essential to friendship, and these must be crowned by a sympathy that enters into all the joys, the sorrows and the interests of the friend; that delights in all his upward progress, and when he stumbles or falls, stretches out the helping hand, and is tender and patient even when it condemns.

--Ware.

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The expensiveness of friendship does not lie in what one does for one's friends, but in what, out of regard for them, one leaves undone.

--Ibsen.

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There are three friendships which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. Friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere; and friendship with the man of observation: these are advantageous. Friendship with the man of specious airs; friendship with the insinuatingly soft; and friendship with the glib-tongued: these are injurious.

--Confucius.

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The tree withereth Which stands in the courtyard Without shelter of bark or of leaf. So is a man Destitute of friends. Why should he live on?

--The Hava-mal.

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There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship, and indeed, friendship itself is but a part of virtue.

--Pope.

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The mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the conversation of a well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life.

--Addison.

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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; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to say "that a friend is another himself."

--Bacon.

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The conversation of a friend brightens the eyes.

--Persian Proverb.

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Those who want friends to open themselves unto, are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable, which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth grief in halfs. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less.

--Bacon.

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There is no better medicine for grief than the advice of a good and honored friend. He who, in his sufferings, excites and tries to soothe his mind by wine, though he may have pleasure for a moment, has a double portion of pain afterwards.