The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Oscar Wilde3 quotes
Generosity is the essence of friendship. — Oscar Wilde · 1888Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature...to sympathise with a friend's success. — Oscar Wilde · 1891Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. — Oscar Wilde · 1892Aristotle2 quotes
One soul dwelling in two bodies. — AristotleWithout friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. — Aristotle · 322 BCRalph Waldo Emerson2 quotes
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1841It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1838Samuel Johnson2 quotes
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair. — Samuel Johnson · 1784We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindness there is at last one which makes the heart run over. — Samuel Johnson · 1777William Shakespeare2 quotes
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love. — William Shakespeare · 1600Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend. — William Shakespeare · 1616Barnabe Googe1 quote
Fair face show friends
When riches do abound:
Come time of proof,
Farewell, they must away. — Barnabe Googe · 1563Benjamin Franklin1 quote
Be slow in chusing a Friend, be slower in changing. — Benjamin Franklin · 1735Blaise Pascal1 quote
If all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world. — Blaise Pascal · 1662Catiline1 quote
To like and dislike the same things, that is indeed true friendship. — Catiline · 50 BCCharles Sanders Peirce1 quote
When I communicate my thought and my sentiments to a friend with whom I am in full sympathy, so that my feelings pass into him and I am conscious of what he feels, do I not live in his brain as well as in my own-most literally! — Charles Sanders Peirce · 1966Cicero1 quote
A friend is, as it were, a second self. — Cicero · 44 BCColette1 quote
It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanism of friendship. — Colette · 1932Confucius1 quote
Have no friends who are not of equal (moral) caliber. — Confucius · 221 BCDavid Whyte1 quote
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. — David Whyte · 2020E.B. White1 quote
You have been my friend... That in itself is a tremendous thing. — E.B. White · 1952E.M. Forster1 quote
If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. — E.M. Forster · 1938Epictetus1 quote
If thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother. — Epictetus · 135Epicurus1 quote
Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship. — Epicurus · 240F. Scott Fitzgerald1 quote
They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered. — F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1920Forrest Gump1 quote
Bubba was my best good friend and even I know that ain’t something you can find just around the corner. — Forrest Gump · 1994Gore Vidal1 quote
Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies. — Gore Vidal · 1973Harry Burns1 quote
No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive he always wants to have sex with her. — Harry Burns · 1989Henry Adams1 quote
One friend in a life-time is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim. — Henry Adams · 1907Ice1 quote
You can be my wingman anytime. — Ice · 1986Jean de La Bruyere1 quote
Time, which strengthens friendship, weakens love. — Jean de La Bruyere · 1688Jesus1 quote
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. — Jesus · 90Kirby Keger1 quote
I always thought we'd be friends forever. — Kirby Keger · 1985Mark Twain1 quote
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. — Mark Twain · 1894Mencius1 quote
Friendship with a man is friendship with his virtue, and does not admit of assumptions of superiority. — Mencius · 300 BC