The Book of Friendship: a Little Manual of Comradeship

Part 1

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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (italics).

Text enclosed by pound signs is widely spaced (#widely spaced#).

THE BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP

A Little Manual of Comradeship

REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN

Philadelphia Henry Altemus Company

Copyright, 1909, by Howard E. Altemus.

#THE BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP#

THE BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP

When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,--no more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you, and delight in you all the time.

--Emerson.

So, if I live or die to serve my friend, ’Tis for my love,--’tis for my friend alone, And not for any rate that friendship bears In heaven or on earth.

--George Eliot

Old friends are the only ones whose hold is upon our inmost being; others but half replace them.

--Voltaire

True friends appear less mov’d than counterfeit.

--Horace

It is sublime to feel and say of another, I need never meet, or speak, or write to him; we need not reënforce ourselves, or send tokens of remembrance; I rely on him as on myself; if he did thus and thus, I know it was right.

--Emerson

A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitly to the guidance of their love, and know no other law but kindness.

--Henry D. Thoreau

Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious stones never.

--Landor

Friendship’s the wine of life.

--Young

Part 2

Give me the avow’d, the erect, the manly foe; Bold I can meet--perhaps may turn his blow; But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, Save, save, oh! save me from the candid friend.

--George Canning

How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.

--Henry D. Thoreau

Common friendships will admit of division; one may love the beauty of this, the good humor of that person, the liberality of a third, the paternal affection of a fourth, the fraternal love of a fifth, and so on. But this friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival.

--Montaigne

Friendship is a sheltering tree.

--Coleridge

We love everything on our own account; we even follow our own taste and inclination when we prefer our friends to ourselves; and yet it is this preference that alone constitutes true and perfect friendship.

--La Rochefoucauld

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude.

--George Eliot

In friendship I early was taught to believe.

--Byron

In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, That there’s no living with thee, or without thee.

--Addison

Friendship of itself a holy tie, Is made more sacred by adversity.

--Dryden

Love and friendship exclude one another.

--La Bruyère

Friendship is a severe sentiment, solidly seated, since it rests upon all that is highest in us, the purely intellectual part of us. What happiness to be able to say all that one feels to someone who comprehends one to the very end and not only up to a certain point, to someone who completes one’s thought with the same word that was on one’s lips, someone the reply of whom starts from one a torrent of conceptions, a flood of ideas!

--Pierre Loti

The man that hails you Tom or Jack, And proves by thumps upon your back How he esteems your merit, Is such a friend that one had need Be very much his friend indeed To pardon or to bear it.

--Cowper

Judge before friendship, then confide till death.

--Young

Have no friend not equal to yourself.

--Confucius

Part 3

Separate thyself from thine enemies, and take heed of thy friends. A faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath found such an one hath found a treasure. Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend, and his excellency is invaluable. A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear the Lord shall find him.

--The Book of Ecclesiasticus

Thou may’st be sure that he that will, in private, tell thee of thy faults, is thy friend, for he adventures thy dislike, and doth hazard thy hatred; there are few men that can endure it, every man for the most part delighting in self-praise, which is one of the most universal follies that bewitcheth mankind.

--Sir Walter Raleigh

Once let friendship be given that is born of God, nor time nor circumstance can change it to a lessening; it must be mutual growth, increasing trust, widening faith, enduring patience, forgiving love, unselfish ambition, and an affection built before the Throne, which will bear the test of time and trial.

--Allan Throckmorton

Friendship is a field which one sows.

--Restif de la Brétonne

A man that is fit to make a friend of must have conduct to manage the engagement, and resolution to maintain it. He must use freedom without roughness, and oblige without design. Cowardice will betray friendship, and covetousness will starve it. Folly will be nauseous, passion is apt to ruffle, and pride will fly out into contumely and neglect.

--Jeremy Collier

Some look to friendship for absolute exemption from criticism, and for a mutual admiration without limit or conditions. Others mistake it for the right of excessive criticism, in season and out of season.

--John Morley

Of what use is the friendliest disposition even, if there are no hours given to Friendship, if it is forever postponed to unimportant duties and relations?

--Henry D. Thoreau

What is loving--that verb (amare) wherefrom the very name of friendship (amicitia) is derived--but wishing one to enjoy the best possible good fortune, even if none of it accrues to one’s self?

--Cicero

Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

--Henry D. Thoreau

Think of the importance of Friendship in the education of men. It will make a man honest; it will make him a hero; it will make him a saint. It is the state of the just dealing with the just, the magnanimous with the magnanimous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man.

--Henry D. Thoreau

The admirer is never stupid in the eyes of the admired.

--Helvetius

One of the surest evidences of friendship that one individual can display to another is telling him gently of a fault. If any other can excel it, it is listening to such a disclosure with gratitude, and amending the error.

--Bulwer-Lytton

We never exchange more than three words with a Friend in our lives on that level to which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually rise.

--Henry D. Thoreau

If thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him; for some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble. And there is a friend who, being turned to enmity and strife, will discover thy reproach. Again, some friend is a companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of thine affliction.

--The Book of Ecclesiasticus

Part 4

Friendship is a pact where one balances faults and qualities. One can judge a friend, take account of what is good, neglect what is evil, and appreciate exactly his value, in abandoning one’s self to an intimate, profound and charming sympathy.

--Guy de Maupassant

Everyone can have a friend Who himself knows how to be a friend.

--Old Saying

We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies,--neighbors are kind enough for that,--but to do the like office to our spirits. For this few are rich enough, however well disposed they may be.

--Henry D. Thoreau

Friendship closes its eye, rather than see the moon eclipst; while malice denies that it is ever at the full.

--J. C. and A. W. Hare

Son, if the lintels of thy house are lofty, and thy friend be sick, say not: What shall I send to him? Go thou rather on foot, and see him with thy eyes; for that is better for him than a thousand talents of gold or Silver.

--Arabian Legend

We must love our friends as true amateurs love paintings: they have their eyes perpetually fixed upon the fine qualities, and see no others.

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