290+ Friendship Quotes for Friends: Short, Funny and Meaningful

Short Friendship Quotes

Need a compact line for a caption, card, or status? Start here. These short friendship quotes keep the message clear without losing the feeling.

• Suspicion kills friendship.

  - Hugh Black • Life and Literature: Friendship selections

• Cultivate the friendship of the good.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• Trust is essential to friendship.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Friendship with the upright is advantageous.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• Friendship is not an obsolete sentiment.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Friendship is the ideal, friends are the reality.

  - Joseph Roux • The Golden Link of Friendship

• Friendship is the sanctuary of the heart.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Friendship, however, is a plant which cannot be forced.

  - Charlotte Brontë • Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle

• Some men have a genius for friendship.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Friendship with the sincere is advantageous.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• The culture of friendship is a duty.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Yes. We will be friends.

  - Frances Hodgson Burnett • A Little Princess

• Friendship is rarer than love and more enduring.

  - H. C. Chatfield-Taylor • From the Heart of a Friend

• Friendship builds itself up.

  - Henry Murger • The Book of Friendship

• Friendship is a very real and close thing.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Friendship is the great chain of human society.

  - James Howell • For Auld Lang Syne

• Friendship is the greatest bond in the world.

  - Jeremy Taylor • From the Heart of a Friend

• Friendship’s the image of Eternity.

  - John Lyly • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• Have friends, not for the sake of receiving, but of giving.

  - Joseph Roux • The Golden Link of Friendship

• Friends are each other’s mirrors.

  - Katherine Philips • The Golden Link of Friendship

• Let’s be friends.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• Nature abhors isolation.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• Friendship is nourished by communication.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• No friendship is an accident.

  - O. Henry • Heart of the West

• The flower of friendship grows.

  - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. • From the Heart of a Friend

• We all want friends at times.

  - Oscar Wilde • Lady Windermere’s Fan

• Life should be fortified by many friendships.

  - Sydney Smith • For Auld Lang Syne

• Friendship is the marriage of the soul.

  - Voltaire • The Book of Friendship

Funny and Witty Friendship Quotes

Friendship is not serious all the time. This group leans into teasing, irony, and the odd truth good friends can laugh about.

• Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

  - Oscar Wilde • The Picture of Dorian Gray

• What’s the good of friends?

  - P. G. Wodehouse • Carry On, Jeeves

• I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.

  - Oscar Wilde • The Picture of Dorian Gray

• Friendship takes time, and we have no time to give it.

  - Agnes Repplier • The Dozy Hours

• I should expect my devoted friend to be devoted to me, of course.

  - Oscar Wilde • The Devoted Friend

• He makes no friend who never made a foe.

  - Alfred, Lord Tennyson • The Golden Link of Friendship

• I dare say that if I knew him I should not be his friend at all.

  - Oscar Wilde • The Remarkable Rocket

• ’T is the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense and to have her nonsense respected.

  - Charles Lamb • The Best Letters of Charles Lamb

• Friendship, like credit, is highest where it is not used.

  - Elbert Hubbard • Love, Life & Work

• Save, save, oh! save me from the Candid Friend!

  - George Canning • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• I call the man a perfect Christian that can always forgive his friends.

  - Harriet Beecher Stowe • Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.

  - Jane Austen • Northanger Abbey

• What is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• It’s bad enough to have red hair myself, but I positively couldn’t endure it in a bosom friend.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• It got hotter and hotter, and broke up all the friendships for three hundred yards around.

  - Mark Twain • Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion

• Love is all very well in its way, but friendship is much higher.

  - Oscar Wilde • The Devoted Friend

• I call him dear partly because he’s head of the House, and therefore, of course, we respect and admire him.

  - P. G. Wodehouse • The Pothunters

• A friend should be like money tried before being required.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

Meaningful Friendship Quotes

Some friendships are easier to feel than explain. These lines focus on closeness, trust, affection, and the value of being truly known.

• When he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart.

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• They whose motive is utility have no Friendship for one another really.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• The very best thing in good talk, and the thing that helps it most, is friendship.

  - Henry van Dyke • Fisherman’s Luck

• In the dew of little things the heart finds its morning.

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• A desire for Friendship may arise quickly but not Friendship itself.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• He is your field which you sow with love.

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• There is a deep beauty, more so than the world will acknowledge, in this impassioned first friendship.

  - Dinah Maria Craik • Olive

• It is quietness pervaded with friendship.

  - Henry van Dyke • Fisherman’s Luck

• Great souls by instinct to each other turn, demand alliance, and in friendship burn.

  - Joseph Addison • The Book of Friendship

• All thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared.

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• Who can love one whom he fears?

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• There can be no pleasure to me without communication.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• The friend is best pleased with loving and being beloved by many.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• The Friendship of the good is alone superior to calumny.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• And to think that her friend loved her in return brought a sensation of deep happiness, not unmixed with gratitude.

  - Dinah Maria Craik • Olive

• I have never thought of you, but as a friend.

  - Elizabeth Gaskell • North and South

• Those that want friends, to open themselves unto, are cannibals of their own hearts.

  - Francis Bacon • Essays: Of Friendship

• Renewed friendships require more care than those that have never been broken.

  - François de La Rochefoucauld • Life and Literature: Friendship selections

• If there is any change in my affection for you it is that I love you more than ever, not less.

  - George Eliot • George Eliot’s Life, Vol. I

• It seems to me that all people who have loving, pitying hearts, are not strangers to each other.

  - Helen Keller • The Story of My Life

• Friendship is no respecter of sex.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Familiar Studies of Men and Books

• There is an exchange of thought and feeling which is happy alike in speech and in silence.

  - Henry van Dyke • Fisherman’s Luck

• There is possible to-day, as ever, a generous friendship which forgets self.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• A friendship that makes the least noise is often the most useful.

  - Joseph Addison • The Book of Friendship

• When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the ‘nay’ in your own mind.

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• Till then I want a friend, and I will find one if I can.

  - Louisa May Alcott • Moods

• It is not friendship that follows material advantage, but material advantage friendship.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• Great and even fatal errors could not destroy my friendship for one in whom I am sure of the kernel of nobleness.

  - Margaret Fuller • Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I

• Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship!

  - Mary Wollstonecraft • A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

• A unique and particular friendship dissolves all other obligations whatsoever.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• O Friendship, flavor of flowers! O lively sprite of life!

  - Nicholas Grimald • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• I know of nothing in the world that is either nobler or rarer than a devoted friendship.

  - Oscar Wilde • The Devoted Friend

• O summer friendship, whose flattering leaves shadowed us in our prosperity.

  - Philip Massinger • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• Freedom of speech is the peculiar and natural voice of friendship.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• We held the league of heart to heart the only purpose of the earth.

  - Richard Hovey • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• We are different with different friends.

  - Robert Louis Stevenson • The Pocket R. L. S.

• Friendship above all ties does bind the heart.

  - Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• A friend is he that loves, and he that is beloved.

  - Thomas Hobbes • For Auld Lang Syne

• A friendship that like love is warm, a love like friendship steady.

  - Thomas Moore • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• A friend is he who sets his heart upon us.

  - William Ellery Channing • The Book of Friendship

• It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends.

  - William Makepeace Thackeray • For Auld Lang Syne

• A pure friendship inspires, cleanses, expands, and strengthens the soul.

  - William Rounseville Alger • For Auld Lang Syne

Best Friend Quotes

A best friend often knows the version of you others never see. Pick one of these lines for the person you trust most.

• A bosom friend, an intimate friend, you know, a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• Why can’t we be friends?

  - Louisa May Alcott • The Works of Louisa M. Alcott

• I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• The friend does not take my word for anything, but he takes me.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• I couldn’t love anybody as I love you.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• I only want to feel that you like me a little and don’t mind my liking you a great deal.

  - Louisa May Alcott • The Works of Louisa M. Alcott

• I love you devotedly, Anne, and I always will, you may be sure of that.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• I have as perfect a friendship for you as my imperfect nature can feel.

  - George Eliot • George Eliot’s Life, Vol. I

• You find out how many friends you have.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• Somehow, little dream girls are not satisfying after a real friend.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• Will you be my friend, and let me be yours?

  - Louisa May Alcott • The Works of Louisa M. Alcott

• I love you more than ever, and I’ve so many things to tell you.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• I have confidence that this friendship can never be shaken.

  - George Eliot • George Eliot’s Life, Vol. I

• The true friend must in some sense disregard all professions of friendship.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• I could not live without the love of my friends.

  - John Keats • From the Heart of a Friend

• I love you as much as ever. I miss you awfully to tell all my secrets to.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• I respect, admire, and trust you more than ever, and feel proud to be your friend.

  - Louisa May Alcott • The Works of Louisa M. Alcott

• My friends have come to me unsought.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• She is good; she is true; she is faithful, and I love her.

  - Charlotte Brontë • Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle

• I dare say you could live without me, Sara; but I couldn’t live without you.

  - Frances Hodgson Burnett • A Little Princess

• A friend is far more than himself.

  - Francis Bacon • Essays: Of Friendship

• He is a good, delightful creature, and I always feel better for being with him.

  - George Eliot • George Eliot’s Life, Vol. I

• Friends are discovered, rather than made.

  - Harriet Beecher Stowe • Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe

• I love you very dearly because you are my friend.

  - Helen Keller • The Story of My Life

• A friend advises by his whole behavior.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends.

  - Jane Austen • Northanger Abbey

• I will ever consider you my sincere and affectionate friend.

  - John Keats • Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends

• Will you swear to be my friend forever and ever?

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• You can never need a friend as much as I do, or know what a blessed thing it is to find such an one as you are.

  - Louisa May Alcott • The Works of Louisa M. Alcott

• You shall always find me a faithful, affectionate friend.

  - Mary Wollstonecraft • The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay

• O what a thing is a true friend!

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• The friend is often pleasant, but always useful.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• The only way to have a friend is to be one.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• The secret of my friend is not mine to give.

  - Sir Philip Sidney • From the Heart of a Friend

• The greatest medicine is a true friend.

  - Sir William Temple • Many Thoughts of Many Minds

True Friendship Quotes

Real friendship is more than liking someone. It grows through honesty, character, time, and mutual care.

• True friendship is also a moral preservative.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• True friendship appears to me to be something richer and more generous.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• The perfect friendship is grounded on what is permanent, on goodness, on character.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• To give and receive advice is peculiarly appropriate to genuine friendship.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• The secret of friendship is just the secret of all spiritual blessing.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• That then is perfect Friendship which subsists between those who are good.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• Friendship is to be valued for what there is in it.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• True friendship is no gourd, springing in a night and withering in a day.

  - Charlotte Brontë • Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle

• The very first principle of friendship is that it is a mutual thing.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• It is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends.

  - Francis Bacon • Essays: Of Friendship

• This golden friendship is not a common thing to be picked up in the street.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Friendship should be a little less unbending, more indulgent and gracious.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals.

  - Samuel Johnson • The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. II

• Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• Affection was first a germ, then a sapling, then a strong tree.

  - Charlotte Brontë • Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle

• Friendship is not friendship at the best till circumstances put it to the test.

  - Ella Wheeler Wilcox • Maurine

• A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the heart.

  - Francis Bacon • Essays: Of Friendship

• Friendship should be a great promise, a perennial springtime.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• Friendship is one of the appointed means of saving the life from worldliness and selfishness.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Pure friendship is something which men of inferior intellect can never taste.

  - Jean de La Bruyère • The Golden Link of Friendship

• Friendship is Love, without either flowers or veil.

  - Julius Charles Hare and Augustus William Hare • The Book of Friendship

• Friendship is Love without his wings!

  - Lord Byron • The Golden Link of Friendship

• Friendship is the best college character can graduate from.

  - Louisa May Alcott • Moods

• The real limit to be observed in friendship is this: the characters of two friends must be stainless.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• The perfect friendship I speak of is indivisible.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• Friendship is made up of esteem and pleasure.

  - Oliver Goldsmith • For Auld Lang Syne

• Friendship is a severe sentiment, solidly seated.

  - Pierre Loti • The Book of Friendship

• Friendship requires praise as much as censure on the proper occasion.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• To live in friendship is to have the same desires and the same aversions.

  - Samuel Johnson • The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. II

• Friendship is a union of spirits, a marriage of hearts, and the bond thereof virtue.

  - William Penn • For Auld Lang Syne

• Friendship is constant in all other things save in the office and affairs of love.

  - William Shakespeare • The Book of Friendship

Friendship and Loyalty Quotes

Loyalty appears in what friends do, not only what they promise. These lines centre on trust, confidence, honesty, and dependability.

• Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• Friendship requires a steady constant and unchangeable character.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• Faithfully admonish your friend, and skillfully lead him on.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• Friendship must live by faith and not by sight.

  - George Eliot • For Auld Lang Syne

• Amongst true friends there is no fear of losing anything.

  - Jeremy Taylor • The Golden Link of Friendship

• The true friend always does what is right.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• A man should keep his friendship in constant repair.

  - Samuel Johnson • Life of Samuel Johnson

• Friends require to be advised and reproved.

  - Cicero • From the Heart of a Friend

• In regard to friends, to show them sincerity.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure.

  - Francis Bacon • Essays: Of Friendship

• Do believe in my love for you, and that it will remain as long as I have my senses.

  - George Eliot • George Eliot’s Life, Vol. I

• Actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.

  - George Washington • From the Heart of a Friend

• He trusts me as I trust myself.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• No friendship can excuse a sin.

  - Jeremy Taylor • The Golden Link of Friendship

• The true friend does not imitate you in everything.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• For promises of friendship are, like all others, useless and vain, unless they are made in some known sense, adjusted and acknowledged by both parties.

  - Samuel Johnson • The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. II

• When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.

  - Seneca • Moral Letters, Letter 3

• A true friend to a man is a friend to all his friends.

  - William Wycherley • The Book of Friendship

Old Friendship Quotes

Years add their own meaning to friendship. These quotes suit childhood friends, old companions, and people who remained close through change.

• Yet I have not found that they change their friends, thank God.

  - Robert Louis Stevenson • Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vol. I

• Change, care, nor Time while life endure shall spoil our ancient friendship sure.

  - Andrew Lang • For Auld Lang Syne

• For believe me, in this world which is ever slipping from under our feet, it is the prerogative of friendship to grow old with one's friends.

  - Arthur S. Hardy • From the Heart of a Friend

• Those are friendships which outlive a second generation.

  - Charles Lamb • The Essays of Elia

• Our long silence has never broken the affection for you that began when we were little ones.

  - George Eliot • George Eliot’s Life, Vol. I

• The best mirror is an old friend.

  - George Herbert • The Book of Friendship

• Token of friendship true and tried, from one whose fiery heart of youth with mine has beaten, side by side.

  - John Greenleaf Whittier • The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Vol. III

• Sudden friendships rarely live to ripeness.

  - Madeleine de Scudéry • Many Thoughts of Many Minds

• The older the sweeter, as in wines that keep well.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• Old friends, Peter?

  - P. G. Wodehouse • The Little Nugget

• Real friendship is a slow grower.

  - Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield • The Book of Friendship

• The place where two friends first met is sacred to them all through their friendship.

  - Phillips Brooks • The Book of Friendship

• We said what a fine thing friendship was, and how little we had guessed of it, and how it made life a new thing.

  - Robert Louis Stevenson • Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vol. XI

• A friend may be often found and lost, but an old friend can never be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.

  - Samuel Johnson • From the Heart of a Friend

• After a certain age a new friend is a wonder.

  - William Makepeace Thackeray • For Auld Lang Syne

Long-Distance Friendship Quotes

Miles can change routines without ending connection. These quotes fit friends who live far away or spend long periods apart.

• The distance of place rendered the conjunction of our wills more rich.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• Distance and time oppose no barrier.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• The arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• Distance has in itself no direct effect upon Friendship.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• My friends are my ‘estate.’

  - Emily Dickinson • Letter 193 to Samuel Bowles

• Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau

• Friends are around us, though no word be spoken.

  - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Complete Poetical Works

• Neither is it properly absence, when we can write to one another.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

Friendship Through Hard Times

Difficult days often reveal the strength of a friendship. Use these lines for support, comfort, resilience, and friends who remain present.

• The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity.

  - Charles Caleb Colton • The Book of Friendship

• It is by our friend’s conduct that we are continually rebuked and yet strengthened for a fresh endeavour.

  - Robert Louis Stevenson • The Pocket R. L. S.

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

  - Charles Caleb Colton • The Book of Friendship

• In the cause of friendship brave all dangers.

  - Charles Dickens • For Auld Lang Syne

• A true and faithful friend can the surest comfort lend.

  - Charles Lamb • The Works of Charles Lamb, Vol. IV

• Somebody cares for me a little. I have a friend.

  - Frances Hodgson Burnett • A Little Princess

• All loving sympathy must express itself in acts of kindness.

  - Helen Keller • The Story of My Life

• Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown!

  - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Complete Poetical Works

• Our sorrows and joys shall be common, so that we may rejoice in mutual prosperity and assist one another in adversity.

  - Henry Ward Beecher • A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher

• For friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.

  - John Dryden • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and dividing of our grief.

  - Joseph Addison • The Gift of Friendship

• Such friendship enhances prosperity, and relieves adversity of its burden by halving and sharing it.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• One must certainly share adversity with him but not crime.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• I would not be a useless friend.

  - Robert Louis Stevenson • Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vol. I

• To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.

  - Samuel Johnson • The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. II

• Friendship is a sheltering tree.

  - Samuel Taylor Coleridge • The Book of Friendship

• True friends visit us in prosperity only when invited, but in adversity they come without invitation.

  - Theophrastus • Many Thoughts of Many Minds

Friends Who Feel Like Family

Some friendships grow so close that the word friend feels too small. These lines capture chosen family, kindred spirits, and a sense of home.

• My friend is my real brother.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• Friendship is the cement of two minds.

  - George Chapman • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• Man seeks friendship out of the desire to realize a home here.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.

  - L. M. Montgomery • Anne of Green Gables

• Our souls had drawn so unanimously together.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

Inspirational Friendship Quotes

Good friends can challenge you, steady you, and help you grow. These quotes focus on the positive influence friendship can bring.

• We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• In friendship each will be nobler than the other.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• I must feel pride in my friend’s accomplishments as if they were mine.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• To the friend they say one should wish all good for his sake.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• Words should pass between friends as the lightning passes from cloud to cloud.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• Our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• The goods of friends are common.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• Be yourself and give your friend a chance to be himself.

  - Elbert Hubbard • Love, Life & Work

• We only need be as true to others as we are to ourselves.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• What is Friendship? Something deep that the heart can spend and keep.

  - Henry van Dyke • The Talisman

• A constant friend is a thing rare and hard to find.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• Nothing so characteristic of friends as the living with one another.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• The finest friendships are between those who can do without each other.

  - Elbert Hubbard • Love, Life & Work

• The best receipt is the admonition of a friend.

  - Francis Bacon • Essays: Of Friendship

• A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting all the virtues from us.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Familiar Studies of Men and Books

• Wealth that greatens while we give, praise that heartens us to live.

  - Henry van Dyke • The Talisman

• It is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• I felt that your love made me strong to do it, and that, in time, I might grow good enough to be your friend.

  - Louisa May Alcott • The Works of Louisa M. Alcott

• Friends are the most valuable and beautiful furniture of life.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• One must indeed assist one’s friend but not do anything wrong for him.

  - Plutarch • Plutarch’s Morals

• We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• To cover the blemishes and to excuse the failings of a friend.

  - Robert South • For Auld Lang Syne

• Fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell.

  - William Morris • From the Heart of a Friend

Gratitude and Thank-You Friendship Quotes

Sometimes the message is simply thank you for being here. These quotes help express appreciation without turning into a long speech.

• Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token.

  - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Complete Poetical Works

• Happy is the house that shelters a friend!

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• To find enjoyment in having many worthy friends is advantageous.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene.

  - Edward Young • The World's Best Poetry, Vol. 10

• My friends have made the story of my life.

  - Helen Keller • The Story of My Life

• Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold, by every friendly sign and salutation.

  - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Complete Poetical Works

• No material success in life is comparable to success in friendship.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• I think I should make a very grateful friend if such an one was kind enough to like me.

  - Louisa May Alcott • Moods

• Nothing is really more delightful than a return of affection.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• When a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal of fortune.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven, the noble mind’s delight and pride.

  - Samuel Johnson • The Golden Link of Friendship

• I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends.

  - William Shakespeare • 2 Henry IV

Classic Friendship Quotes from Literature

Friendship has filled letters, poems, plays, essays, and novels for centuries. This section gathers lines with a strong literary source behind them.

• Friendship demands a religious treatment.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• We were well fitted to be a mutual consolation to each other.

  - Mary Shelley • Mathilda

• Before him I may think aloud.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• He that wrongs his friend wrongs himself more.

  - Alfred, Lord Tennyson • The Golden Link of Friendship

• No friend's a friend till he shall prove a friend.

  - Beaumont and Fletcher • The Book of Friendship

• Have no friends not equal to yourself.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• Judge before friendship, then confide till death.

  - Edward Young • The Golden Link of Friendship

• The friend is another himself.

  - Francis Bacon • Essays: Of Friendship

• Come, my friend, and let us prove life’s true talisman is love!

  - Henry van Dyke • The Talisman

• A man’s friend is not his property.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• Here Catherine and Isabella, arm in arm, again tasted the sweets of friendship in an unreserved conversation.

  - Jane Austen • Northanger Abbey

• Ours has severest virtue for its basis, and such a friendship ends not but with life.

  - Joseph Addison • Cato

• Your friend is your needs answered.

  - Kahlil Gibran • The Prophet: On Friendship

• Friendship bids us be indignant with those who speak against our friends.

  - Madame de Sévigné • Portraits of Women

• The best gift of heaven, a friend.

  - Mary Shelley • Mathilda

• A man’s friends are his magnetisms.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • The Golden Link of Friendship

• The assurance of your friendship, the intimacy to which you admit me, now, make the truest, deepest joy of my life.

  - Robert Browning • Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

• A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.

  - William Shakespeare • Julius Caesar

Friendship Wisdom Quotes

Friendship also comes with choices about trust, listening, honesty, and space. These lines offer broader wisdom about keeping relationships strong.

• The field where friends have met is consecrated forever.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• A friend ought not to take the view of him which he takes of himself.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• Because it was he, because it was I.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• Where people are in Friendship Justice is not required.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• Friendship with the man of much observation is advantageous.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• I go away to cherish my idea of friendship.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Thoreau’s Journal I, 1837-1846

• Put yourself on a level with your friend.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• We sought one another long before we met.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• Defrauded friendship gets a few moments now and again, and is bidden to content itself.

  - Agnes Repplier • The Dozy Hours

• Stay is a charming word in a friend’s vocabulary.

  - Amos Bronson Alcott • The Book of Friendship

• Equality is said to be a tie of Friendship.

  - Aristotle • The Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX

• Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice.

  - Baltasar Gracián • The Book of Friendship

• Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

  - Benjamin Franklin • The Book of Friendship

• To conceal resentment against a person, and appear friendly with him, I also am ashamed of it.

  - Confucius • The Analects of Confucius

• It is the merit and preservation of friendship that it takes place on a level higher than the actual characters of the parties would seem to warrant.

  - Henry David Thoreau • Familiar Studies of Men and Books

• It is not identity which is the aim and the glory of friendship, but unity in the midst of difference.

  - Hugh Black • Friendship by Hugh Black

• The intercourse between friends is varied and complex.

  - Marcus Tullius Cicero • Laelius on Friendship

• Nothing was so near to us as one another.

  - Michel de Montaigne • The Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.

  - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. • From the Heart of a Friend

• The laws of friendship are austere and eternal.

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson • Essays, First Series: Friendship

• Friendships are the purer and the more ardent, the nearer they come to the presence of God.

  - Walter Savage Landor • The Book of Friendship

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