Generosity is the essence of friendship.

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Short story

Generosity is the essence of friendship.

Oscar Wilde

1888

★ 2.1

Other tags relating to this quote

Topic

Generosity Nature of friendship Friendship

Medium

Short story

Time

1888

Person

Oscar Wilde

Provenance

Current citation

Wilde, Oscar. "The Devoted Friend." Oscar Wilde: Complete Short Fiction, edited by Ian Small. Penguin Classics, 2003.

Original citation

Wilde, Oscar. "The Devoted Friend." The Happy Prince and Other Tales. London: Duckworth and Co., 1888.

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The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self. The ultimate touchstone is witness: the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

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This is hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

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The sage does not accumulate for himself. The more he uses for others, the more he has himself. The more he gives to others, the more he possesses of his own. The Way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.

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To recognise that the soul of a man is unknowable, is the ultimate achievement of wisdom. The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?

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Generosity is the essence of friendship. — Oscar Wilde

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