Famous Quotes & Sayings

Henry David Thoreau

My Friend is that one whom I can associate with my choicest thought.

Henry David Thoreau

What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do not, after all, love their Friends greatly. I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other's presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man.

Henry David Thoreau

We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves, that there may be grounds enough for friendship.

Henry David Thoreau

We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.

Henry David Thoreau

Friendship is the unspeakable joy and blessing that result to two or more individuals who from constitution sympathize. Such natures are liable to no mistakes, but will know each other through thick and thin. Between two by nature alike and fitted to sympathize, there is no veil, and there can be no obstacle. Who are the estranged? Two friends explaining.

Henry David Thoreau

I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified.

Henry David Thoreau

At death our friends and relatives either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart farther from us and are forgotten. Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.

Henry David Thoreau

To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill 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 David Thoreau

One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then

Henry David Thoreau

Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their lives. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the rich leave money to defray the expenses of their funerals, and their memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for our Friends have no place in the graveyard.

Henry David Thoreau

My friend is one who takes me for what I am. A stranger takes me for something else than what I am. . . . What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter which lie close together to keep each other warm. It brings men together in crowds and mobs in bar-rooms and elsewhere, but it does not deserve the name of virtue.

Henry David Thoreau

I have never met with a friend who furnished me sea-room. I have only tacked a few times and come to anchor - not sailed - made no voyage, carried no venture.

Henry David Thoreau

To say that a man is your Friend means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy.

Henry David Thoreau

There are times when we have had enough even of our Friends.

Henry David Thoreau

The only danger in Friendship is that it will end.

Henry David Thoreau

I love my friends very much, but I find that it is of no use to go to see them. I hate them commonly when I am near them. They belie themselves and deny me continually.

Henry David Thoreau

I would that I were worthy to be any man's Friend.

Henry David Thoreau

Friends . . . They are kind to each other's hopes. They cherish each other's dreams.

Henry David Thoreau

Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.

Henry David Thoreau

Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have been changed into a pine at last? No! no! it is the poet: he it is who makes the truest use of the pine-who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane. . . .

Henry David Thoreau

While my friend was my friend, he flattered me, and I never heard the truth from him. When he became my enemy, he shot it to me on a poisoned arrow.

Henry David Thoreau

Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.

Henry David Thoreau

My friend is one... who take me for what I am.

Henry David Thoreau

What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!

Henry David Thoreau

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Make allowances for your friends' imperfections as readily as you do for your own.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Become the kind of person who brightens a room just by entering it.

Jessica Hahn

I believe in God, because he is the only thing that kept me going. He's my best friend.

Ernest Hemingway

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

Erinn Smart

My brother is my best friend.

Florence King

Misanthropes have some admirable if paradoxical virtues. It is no exaggeration to say that we are among the nicest people you arelikely to meet. Because good manners build sturdy walls, our distaste for intimacy makes us exceedingly cordial "ships that pass in the night." As long as you remain a stranger we will be your friend forever.

Henry Miller

When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.

Helen Keller

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.