All quotes

Even if we are alone, we store up our enjoyment in hope of sharing it hereafter with those we love.

Love is the light and sunshine of life.

Love lasts through life, and adapts itself to every age and circumstance; in childhood for father and mother, in manhood for wife, in age for children, and throughout for brothers and sisters, relations and friends.

Most of those who have written in praise of books have thought they could say nothing more conclusive than to compare them to friends.

Some people never seem to appreciate their friends till they have lost them.

Every one must have felt that a cheerful friend is like a sunny day, which sheds its brightness on all around; and most of us can, as we choose, make of this world either a palace or a prison.

We love the ticking of the clock, and the flicker of the fire, like the sound of the cawing of rooks, not so much for any beauty of their own as for their associations.

granting that we had both the will and the sense to choose our friends well, how few of us have the power! or, at least, how limited, for most, is the sphere of choice!

Running in this Road I found many like myself; and we associated in that which is the reverse of true Friendship.

Your friend is your needs answered.

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

There are men in whose presence the greatest of heroes would not dare to be silent; and even the soul that has nothing to conceal trembles lest another should discover its secret.

a man should, at the first approaches, favour their grief and express some approbation of their sorrow

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

There is nothing to which nature seems so much to have inclined us, as to society

We sought one another long before we met, and by the characters we heard of one another

Whereas in friendship, 'tis a general and universal fire, but temperate and equal, a constant established heat, all gentle and smooth, without poignancy or roughness.

A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief.

Moreover men commonly deceive themselves in respect of the love which they imagine others bear them, nor can ever be sure of it until they have put it to the proof.

The prince, therefore, who would guard himself against plots, ought more to fear those men to whom he has been too indulgent, than those to whom he has done great wrongs.

a prince should entrust his friends with so much authority only as leaves a certain interval between his position and theirs

Whereas among real friends there is no rivalry or jealousy of one another, but they are satisfied and contented alike whether they are equal or one of them is superior.

a friend should be like money tried before being required, not found faulty in our need

not to find friends at a time when you want them is hard, as also not to be able to exchange an inconstant and bad friend for a constant and good one

we ought to give our friend pain if it will benefit him, but not to the extent of breaking off our friendship; but just as we make use of some biting medicine, that will save and preserve the life of the patient