jacobross: CHRISTIAN FRIENDSHIP

Friendship Quotes: General

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

- Charles Caleb Colton

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

- Anais Nin

"My friends are my estate."

- Emily Dickinson

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."

"A friend is one who walks in when others walk out"

-Walter Winchell

"A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else."

- Len Wein - Sent by Paulo Louro

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."

- Sent by Donna Roberts

"A friend is one who believes in you when you have ceased to believe in yourself."

- Sent by Lysha

"Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.

Walk beside me and be my friend."

- Albert Camus (also attributed to Maimonidies). Sent by clovers

"A hug is worth a thousand words. A friend is worth more."

- Sent by Jasmine Fitzwilliam

"Everyone is a friend, until they prove otherwise."

- sent by Steve

"Every person is a new door to a different world."

- from movie "Six Degrees of Seperation" (thanks to Steve's Famous Quotes)

"It takes a long time to grow an old friend."

- by John Leonard (thanks to Steve's Famous Quotes)

"Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."

- Elbert Hubard

"I get by with a little help from my friends."

- John Lennon

"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up."

- Bible: Ecclesiastes

"Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends."

- Mary Catherwood

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."

- C. S. Lewis

"I might give my life for my friend, but he had better not ask me to do up a parcel."

- Logan Pearsall Smith

"Friends are the most important ingredient in this recipe of life."

- (sent by Dior Yamasaki)

"The better part of one's life consists of his friendships."

- Abraham Lincoln, (sent by Heather Myers)

"The love of my life is the love between friends."

- (sent by Jess)

"One's best friend is oneself."

- (sent by Jess)

"A Friend is someone who knows all about you and loves you anyway!!!"

- (sent by Heather Tallent)

"To be depressed is to be lonely; to have a friend is to be happy..."

- Guido

The following Girl Scouts Motto has been submitted by many people in varying forms, so I've just placed the three most popular versions on:

1) "Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold"

2) "Make new friends, both young and old, one in Silver, the other Gold."

3) "Make new friends but keep the old, some are silver and others are Gold"

4}"I have a hand, and you have another; put them together and we have each other."

"Strangers are just friends waiting to happen."

- (sent by Steve Klaka)

"Sometimes you pick your friends, sometimes they pick you."

- (sent by Steve Klaka)

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him, his own."

-Benjamin Disraeli

"Though our communication wanes at times of absence, I'm aware of a strength that emanates in the background."

-Claudette Renner

"I can trust my friends. These people force me to examine, encourage me to grow."

-Cher

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being."

-Goethe

"Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You canít have too many friends because then youíre just not really friends."

"No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever."

- Francois Mocuriac - Sent in by spiff

"Give others freedom to be themselves. Appreciate the differences between their ways an yours."

- (sent by Jennifer Chen)

"Friends are the Bacon Bits in the Salad Bowl of Life."

- "Pizza Place Sign", (sent by Rory Bristol)

The following 5 quotes were sent by Danielle N. Redfield - Thanks!! :) :)

"Friendship is one mind in two bodies."

- Mencius

"Truth and tears clear the way to a deep and lasting friendship."

"True friendship is never serene."

- Mariede Svign

"Friendship: a building contract you sign with laughter and break with tears."

"Friends are God's way of taking care of us."

"It's the friends you can call up at 4am that matter."

- Marlene Dietrick

"A friend is a gift you give yourself."

- Robert Louis Stevenson, (sent by Julio Fung)

"Friend - a person known well to another and regarded with liking, affection and loyalty."

- Collins English Dictionary

"A new friendship is like an unripened fruit - it may become either an orange or a lemon"

- Emma Stacey

"Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success."

- Oscar Wilde

"Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade."

- William Shakespeare

"Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

- Mother Teresa

"I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Misfortune shows those who are not really friends."

- Aristotle

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

- Mark Twain

"Thus nature has no love for solitude, and always leans, as it were, on some support; and the sweetest support is found in the most intimate friendship."

- Cicero

"Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind."

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"The best mirror is an old friend."

- George Herbert

"What is a friend? A single soul in two bodies."

- Aristotle

"The friendship that can cease has never been real."

- Saint Jerome

"I count myselt in nothing else so happy

As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends."

- William Shakespeare

"I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial."

- Thomas Jefferson

"Sir, more than kisses, letters, mingle souls;

For, thus friends absent speak."

- John Donne

"Too late we learn, a man must hold his friend

Unjudged, accepted, trusted to the end."

- John Boyle O'Reilly

"Friends have all things in common."

- Plato

"Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods."

- Artistotle

"My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me."

- Henry Ford

"What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. They are but trifles, to be sure but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."

"No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence."

- George Eliot

"It is a sweet thing, friendship, a dear balm,

A happy and auspicious bird of calm..."

- Shelly

"The best way to keep your friends is not to give them away."

- Wilson Mizner

"The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters."

- Thomas Jefferson

"One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter."

- Francoise Sagan

"Friendship is always a sweet responsibilty, never an oppourtunity."

- Kahil Gibran

"There is magic in the memory of schoolboy friendships; it softens the heart, and even affects the nervous system of those who have no heart."

- Bejamin Disraeli

"I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends."

- Walt Whitman

"True friendship is never serene."

- Marquise de Sevigne

"When friends stop being frank and useful to each other, the whole world loses some of its radiance."

- Anatole Broyard

"Friends are born, not made."

- Henry Adams

"This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joy, and cutteth griefs in half."

- Francis Bacon

"Life is partly what we make it, and partly what is made by the friends whom we choose."

- Tehyi Hsieh

"There is no hope of joy except in human relations."

- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery

"The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man's success in life."

- Edward Everett Hale

"Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannogt congeal in winter."

- James Fenimore Cooper

"Friendship without self interest is one of the rare and beautiful things in life."

- James Francis Byrnes

"Never kiss a friend. If you have deeper feelings, never reveal them. You will lose that friend forever..."

- sent by David

"Do not save your loving speeches

For your friends till they are dead;

Do not write them on their tombstones,

Speak them rather now instead.

- Anna Cummins

"True friendship's laws are by this rule express'd,

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest."

- Alexander Pope

"Best friends are like diamonds, precious and rare

False friends are like leaves, found everywhere."

- Anoymous (sent by Deanne Pigdon)

"Every man should have a fair-sized cemetary in which to bury the faults of his friends."

- Henry Brooks Adams

"We are all angels with only one wing...we can fly only embracing each other."

"If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump with them, I'd be at the bottom to catch them"

"A good friend is hard to find, hard to lose, and impossible to forget..."

- Sent by Joanne

"Time isn't what makes a friendship last...It's love and devotion that keeps the tie between souls."

- Sent by Christina

"The best antiques are old friends."

The next five quotes were sent in by Ashley "When the silences are no longer akward, you know you are around friends."

"Friendship is a special kind of love."

"The secret to friendship is being a good listener."

"A true friend is someone you can trust with all your secrets."

"Gems may be presious, but friends are priceless."

"You my friend, I wiil defend. And if we change, we'll love you anyway."

- Sent by Jeffery Sherian

"If you have more than one friend, you have more than your share!"

- Sent by Sunpreet Singh

"Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say."

"A person is only complete when she has a true friend to understand her, to share all her passions and sorrows with, and to stand by her throughout her life."

- Sent by Jennifer L.

"Material things can't make the soul whole. The only the love, trust, and loyalty of friends can do that."

Sent by Andy Spak

"Friendship is not friendship without trust, without it I walk alone."

- James P. Michels Jr.

"Friendship is the golden ribbon that ties the world together."

- Sent by Kristina Kentigian

friendship is talking to your best friend without words."

- Sent by Ralph Rusconi.

"A true friend is the one who knows more about you than yourself and still loves you>"

- Sent by Suzie

The next three sent in by Irma Berbis

"Friendship is the golden thread that ties all hearts together"

- Sent by Kim

"Money might make you wealthy, but friends makes you rich."

"You don't make friends, you earn them."

"When your looking for a friend don't look for perfection, just look for friendship."

" A friend is someone who sticks (hangs) to you at all times, and a friend is someone who you trust...."

- sent by Winnie Chau

"How do you know you've found your best friend. When you are ready to talk to them about anything, even though they know everything about you already."

"A friend with break your heart, a friend will mend it, a friend will provide you with every feeling in the world, good and bad. A friend is emotion incarnate."

These next two sent in by Rena

"Yesterday brought the beginning, tomorrow brings the end, but somewhere in the middle we've become best of friends."

"When we are grown, we'll smile and say we had no cares in childhoods day, but we'll be wrong. 'Twill not be true, I've this much care... I care for you."

"A faithful friend is a strong defence and he that hath found one hath found a treasure"

- sent by Cris

"Friends are those who norish the spirit"

- sent by Cris

"I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me. I'd like to be the help that you've been always glad to be; I'd like to mean as much to you each minute of the day, as you have meant, old friend of mine, to me along the way."

- Edgar A. Guest (sent by Rena)

"A friend loves you, makes you feel alright, troubles are not troubles when you talk, listen and accept you as you are, because you will feel the same and love the same......."

- Sent by Mike

"Try to be governed by your loves and not your hates and find goodness and beauty where you can."

- Sent by Brandon Merenda

"It is better to be thought of as a fool, rather than open your mouth to remove all doubt."

- Sent by Bill

Keep your eyes upon me, keep me in your sight, Help me don the crooked road, lead me to the light. The road I'm on is dark, I'm not sure if I know the way, Yet with you right beside me, I'm certain I won't stray. Protect me from the world, I know we'll make it through, Give me all the strength I need..... Let me lean on you."

- Megan Stroup (Sent by Lauren)

"No lapse of time or distance of place can lessen the friendship of those who are truly persuaded of each other's worth."

- Unknown

"Friendship is what gets you through the bad times and helps you enjoy the good times"

- Sent by Kate

"Friends are angels following you through life"

- Sent by Melissa

"Friends are like pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up and sometimes they lean on you."

- Sent by Sharon

"You cannot say you've lost a friend. If a friendship is capable of ending, it is because it never existed."

~ Sent by Mayza Blanco Martinez

"A world without a friend, what would it be? It would be like a world without water, something you need. Friends are like glass, once broken, they are hard to fix. Keep your friends, as you would keep your water."

"The music may stop now and then, But the the strings will remain forever..."

- Sent by Yuslina

"Friend derives from a word meaning "free." A friend is someone who allows us the space and freedom to be."

"Having someone who understands is a great blessing for ourselves. Being someone who understands is a great blessing to others."

"Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts."

- Maragret Lee Runbeck

"Scatter seeds of kindness everywhere you go;

Scatter bits of courtesy--------

watch them grow and grow.

Gather buds of friendship;

Keep them till full-blown;

You will find more happiness

than you have ever known.

- Amy R Raabe

"We cannot tell the precise moment when a friendshipt is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, There is at last one drop that makes it run over. So in a series of kindness there is at last one drop that makes the heart run over."

Sent by Collen

"Any day is sunny that's brightened by a smile...Any friendship blossoms if it's tended to with style."

"The better you know someone, the less there is to say. Or maybe, there's less that needs to be said."

"Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness..."

- Richard Bach

"The most beautiful discovery that true friends can make is that they can grow separately without growing apart."

-Elizabeth Foley

"How lucky I am to have known someone who was so hard to say goodbye to."

"I don't remember how we happened to meet each other. I don't remember who got along with whom first. All I can remember is all of us together...always."

"You only meet your once in a lifetime friend... once in a lifetime."

- Little Rascals

"A circle is round it has no end, that's how long I want to be your friend!"

- Anonymous

"A friend is like an oreo, its not always that great, but it always gets better!"

- Erin Westbrook

"A best friend is a sister that destiny forgot to give you."

"One loyal friend is better than ten thousand family members."

"You just remined me of what's really important in life, friends, best friends."

- Fried Green Tomatoes

"Times of need are not enough to prove your friendship."

Sent by Kristen

"If your trusted and people will allow you to share their inner gardern...what better gift?"

- Fred Rogers

"A friend is someone who reaches for your hand, but touches your heart."

- Kathleen Grove

"Friends are like Peanut Butter ... it sticks to the roof of your mouth .like a friend sticks to you.... and it feels as if they never go away.!"

"True friendship, unlike love, always lasts forever."

Sent by Chatterbox

"To the world you are someone, but to someone you are the world."

Sent by Lisa

"A friend will be there for you when things are good...but a TRUE friend will be there for you when things are good and also when things are very bad...and just when it feels like you will never smile again...she can put a smile on your face with just with a hug!"

Sent by Kathrine

"A real friend is not one who only entertain you, but one who cares about you, one who will be there when you cry"

Sent by David

"Best friends are better than boyfriends."

- Sent by Mavis Jukes

"As I reach a time of complete uncertainty, friends are my most precious asset."

Sent by Josylan

"There is no distance too great between friends, for love gives wings to the heart."

Sent by Elizabeth E. Koehler

"Where there is love there is life."

"A friend will strengthen you with her prayers, bless you with her love, and encourage you with her hope."

! " I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me. . . I'd like to be the help you've always been glad to be; I'd like to mean as much to you each minute of the day, as you have meant, old friend of mine, to me along the way."

Sent by Jenny Mcgehee

"A friend is like a rainbow. They brighten your life when you've been through a storm."

Sent by Jenna Palmer

"A friend in kindergarten is the one who sat next to you and let you have the pretty red crayon, when only the ugly black one was left."

Sent by Liz

"True friendship is one that lasts even though one friend's sole has left this earth"

Sent by Jennifer

"A reassuring presence, A LIGHT when times are dark, A hand reaching out, Is what friendship is about."

Author Unknown - Sent by Laure Schnackenberg

"We always thought we'd look back on our tears and laugh, but we never thought we'd look back on our laughter and cry."

-Author Unkown, sumitted by Amanda

When I'm asked what one happy thought is I always say knowing that no matter how big the fight is I will always havea best friend.

- Smitten_Kitten

"Dont walk on front of me, i may not follow~ dont walk behind me i may not lead~ just walk beside me and be my friend."

"Love is blind, but friendship closes its eyes."

"I believe in Angels, the ones that heaven sends

I believe in Angels, but i call them my best friends"

-Sent in by Micaela K

"Friendship is like a popsicle on two sticks, when the friendship breaks, so does the popsicle, making everything a mess"

-Sent in by Paul

"Even on the road to hell a flower will make you smile."

-365Tao -Sent in by Tara

"Dreams are wishes casted upon stars, so catch a shining one ~ take your friend's hand~ and hold on forever"

-Traci Brown

The following seven quotes were sent in by Susannah Thomson

"You are you and I am I,

You do your thing and I'll do mine,

and if in the end we meet up together,

it is beautiful."

-Boy Meets World

"Love doesn't make the world go round, it makes the ride worthwhile."

-F.P. Jones

"All our young lives we search for someone to love, someone who makes us complete. We choose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope, all the while wondering if somewhere and somehow there is someone searching for us."

-The Wonder Years

"We laughed

until we had to cry.

We gave love,

right down to our last goodbye.

We were the best

we thought we'd ever be

Just you and me,

for just a moment...

"You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back."

-Barbara DeAngelis

"My wish upon this shooting star is that your heart be happy."

-Gilbert

"If we discovered that we had only 5 minutes left to say what we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they loved them."

-Christopher Morley

"A friend you have to buy, wont be worth what you pay for him."

-Sent in by Maris B

"I can doubt my friends, but I can believe in our friendship."

"IF YOU TREAT YOUR FRIEND AS THEY SHOULD BE, THEY WILL BECOME ONE OF THE CROWD. IF YOU TREAT YOUR FRIEND AS THEY OUGHT TO BE TREATED, THEY WILL BECOME AN INDIVIDUAL."

"True friends, like ivy and the wall stand together and both together fall."

The following two quotes were sent in by Cheryl.

"Friendships are fragile things, and require as much handling as any other fragile and precious things."

-Randolph S. Bourne

"With clothes the new are the best, with friends the old are the best."

"Friendship is like thighs, they are always sticking together."

-Sent in by Leesa and Ashley

"If you are going to gain anything in life, gain a friend, they will always be there, and that makes all the difference in the world."

-Sent in by Steve

"True friends are never apart, maybe in distance, but not in heart"

- Sent in by Louisa

"A real friend will tell you when you have spinach stuck in your teeth."

-Sent in by Nadine Cooper

The following two quotes were sent in by Louisa

"Shared sorrow is half sorrow, shared joy is double joy"

"Most people come into our lives and quickly leave. It is the special few that come in and leave a footprint in our hearts. and we are forever changed."

"There is an exquisite melody in every heart. If we listen closely, we can hear each other's song. A friend knows the song in your heart and responds with Beatiful harmony."

-Sent in by soumya

The following two quotes were sent in by Beth Miklius.

"Friends are like flowers, beautiful flowers; friends are like flowers in the garden of life."

"True friendship is sitting together in silence and feeling like it was the best conversation you've ever had."

"If we were leaving in a world where to say i love you would make more sense, i would always say you i love you"

-Ozge Dilsiz

"Choose your friends carefully you never know who is on your side, and remember the truth shall prevail. "

-LINK

"False friends aren't always that bad because it shows you about yourself and teaches you to be strong and life goes on."

-Josh Wojo

"Remember that every good friend was once a stranger"

-Sent in by André

"They say 'you only regret the things you never do.' Then why do I regret every bad thing I did to you?"

General Friendship Quotes Continued...

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'The Friendship Page: Quotes - General' © Global Friendship 1996-2005

Last updated: 08/05/2006 00:44:31

Visitor number: since 6 October 2002!

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International Friendship Day

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August 3 is International Friendship Day for 2008, time to recognise your friends and their contribution to your life. Friendship helps to bring peace and positivity to the globe - a great reason to celebrate!

Friendship Day occours on the first Sunday of August - only once a year - so make the most of it! :) Friends come in many shapes, sizes and guises: school friends, work colleagues, siblings, partners, parents, pets and neighbours. Pull out all the stops and

let your friends know they are truly appreciated!

Have fun with your friends!

[Send Tribute

Send E-Card

Send Poem

Send Flowers

Send Friendship Band ]

Celebration Ideas

Need some suggestions on how to celebrate Friendship Day and show your friends they are special? Read on below for some suggestions and links...

• Write a nice card for your friend telling them how much you appreciate their friendship. Spill out your heart to them as though there is no tomorrow.

• Buy or make them a small present - flowers, chocolates, friendship bands, a cake, a dreamcatcher, friendship journal or anything that catches your imagination! Consider leaving the gift anonymously for added intrigue!

• Hug someone, preferably your friend!

• Make a point to call every one of your friends on Friendship Day to let them know you care.

Longtime Friends

Best Friends • Make your friend a mixed CD of all the songs that define your friendship (or ones that you just happen to mutually like!)

• Submit a Friendship Tribute to your friend to be posted on the web.

• Call all those old friends you haven't spoken to in ages.. remember the girl scout motto: "Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold"!

• Send your friend a Happy Friendship Day greeting online to brighten their day.

• Make a special friendship book for your best friend. Include photos, quotes and poetry telling your friends how special they are.

• Invite your closest buddies over for a sleepover! Rent some movies and pig out on popcorn, chocolate and all forms of unhealthy food! Bring some blankets outside and watch the stars.

• Plan a special day with your best friend or friendship group. A picnic is always a fun idea, and great for all ages. If you're physically-inclined, try an activity such as bowling, golf, rollerblading, cricket or going to the beach.

• If you're all busy during the day, plan to go out to dinner with your friend(s). Dress up in your finest and have a fun night that's different from the norm.

• Host a Friendship Dinner Party!

Have a sleepover!

Married friends • Write your friend a webpage to express your friendship online

• Ring up a radio station and dedicate a song to Friendship Day and your friends!

• Make some new friends by becoming a doer of RAOK - Random Acts of Kindness

• Buy your friend a ticket to the theatre so you can enjoy a great show together. If you can't afford this, downscale to the movies!

• Give your friend a Friendship Bracelet (made or bought) to symbolise your friendship

• Grab a camera or visit a photo machine and take some photos of you & your friends enjoying yourselves!

Friendship Quotes: Proverbs

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"Books and friends should be few but good."

"A friend in need is a friend indeed."

- Latin Proverb

"A good friend is my nearest relation."

"A hedge between keeps friendship green."

"God defend me from my friends; from my enemies I can defend myself."

"Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes."

"Love is blind. Friendship tries not to notice."

-Sent in by Angela Kendrick

"The best of friends must part."

"Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead."

- Chinese Proverb, (sent by Julio Fung)

"To have a friend, be a friend."

(sent by Julio Fung)

"The death of a friend is equivalent to the loss of a limb."

- German Proverb

"Life without a friend is like death without a witness."

- Spanish Proverb

"The best mirror is an old friend."

"May there always be work for your hands to do, may your purse always hold a coin or two. May the sun always shine on your windowpane, may a rainbow be certain to follow each rain. May the hand of a friend always be near you, may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you."

- Irish Blessing

"A cheerful friend is like asunny day spreading brightness all around."

- John Lubcock ( English Astronomer )

"THERE ARE MANY TYPES OF SHIPS. THERE ARE WOODEN SHIPS ,PLASTIC SHIPS, AND METAL SHIPS. BUT THE BEST AND MOST IMPORTAINT TYPES OF SHIPS ARE FRIENDSHIPS."

- OLD IRISH QUOTE (SENT BY -ROBERT J. BADAR JR.)

"The only unsinkable ship is FRIENDSHIP."

-Sent in by Jeff Sczpanski

" A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."

- Arabian Proverb

"It is better to be in chains with friends , than to be in a garden with strangers."

-Persian Proverb -Sent in by

Texts : Essays: First Series : FRIENDSHIP

Friendship

from Essays: First Series (1841)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A ruddy drop of manly blood

The surging sea outweighs,

The world uncertain comes and goes,

The lover rooted stays.

I fancied he was fled,

And, after many a year,

Glowed unexhausted kindliness

Like daily sunrise there.

My careful heart was free again, —

O friend, my bosom said,

Through thee alone the sky is arched,

Through thee the rose is red,

All things through thee take nobler form,

And look beyond the earth,

And is the mill-round of our fate

A sun-path in thy worth.

Me too thy nobleness has taught

To master my despair;

The fountains of my hidden life

Are through thy friendship fair.

ESSAY VI Friendship

We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth.

The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration. In poetry, and in common speech, the emotions of benevolence and complacency which are felt towards others are likened to the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more active, more cheering, are these fine inward irradiations. From the highest degree of passionate love, to the lowest degree of good-will, they make the sweetness of life.

Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend, — and, forthwith, troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words. See, in any house where virtue and self-respect abide, the palpitation which the approach of a stranger causes. A commended stranger is expected and announced, and an uneasiness betwixt pleasure and pain invades all the hearts of a household. His arrival almost brings fear to the good hearts that would welcome him. The house is dusted, all things fly into their places, the old coat is exchanged for the new, and they must get up a dinner if they can. Of a commended stranger, only the good report is told by others, only the good and new is heard by us. He stands to us for humanity. He is what we wish. Having imagined and invested him, we ask how we should stand related in conversation and action with such a man, and are uneasy with fear. The same idea exalts conversation with him. We talk better than we are wont. We have the nimblest fancy, a richer memory, and our dumb devil has taken leave for the time. For long hours we can continue a series of sincere, graceful, rich communications, drawn from the oldest, secretest experience, so that they who sit by, of our own kinsfolk and acquaintance, shall feel a lively surprise at our unusual powers. But as soon as the stranger begins to intrude his partialities, his definitions, his defects, into the conversation, it is all over. He has heard the first, the last and best he will ever hear from us. He is no stranger now. Vulgarity, ignorance, misapprehension are old acquaintances. Now, when he comes, he may get the order, the dress, and the dinner, — but the throbbing of the heart, and the communications of the soul, no more.

What is so pleasant as these jets of affection which make a young world for me again? What so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling? How beautiful, on their approach to this beating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis, vanish, — all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely, and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, — a possession for all time. Nor is nature so poor but she gives me this joy several times, and thus we weave social threads of our own, a new web of relations; and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe. My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather not I, but the Deity in me and in them derides and cancels the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex, circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now makes many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent lovers, who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths, and enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts. These are new poetry of the first Bard, — poetry without stop, — hymn, ode, and epic, poetry still flowing, Apollo and the Muses chanting still. Will these, too, separate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but I fear it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by simple affinity, and the Genius of my life being thus social, the same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these men and women, wherever I may be.

I confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this point. It is almost dangerous to me to "crush the sweet poison of misused wine" of the affections. A new person is to me a great event, and hinders me from sleep. I have often had fine fancies about persons which have given me delicious hours; but the joy ends in the day; it yields no fruit. Thought is not born of it; my action is very little modified. I must feel pride in my friend's accomplishments as if they were mine, — and a property in his virtues. I feel as warmly when he is praised, as the lover when he hears applause of his engaged maiden. We over-estimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less. Every thing that is his, — his name, his form, his dress, books, and instruments, — fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth.

Yet the systole and diastole of the heart are not without their analogy in the ebb and flow of love. Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. The lover, beholding his maiden, half knows that she is not verily that which he worships; and in the golden hour of friendship, we are surprised with shades of suspicion and unbelief. We doubt that we bestow on our hero the virtues in which he shines, and afterwards worship the form to which we have ascribed this divine inhabitation. In strictness, the soul does not respect men as it respects itself. In strict science all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness. Shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical foundation of this Elysian temple? Shall I not be as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what they are. Their essence is not less beautiful than their appearance, though it needs finer organs for its apprehension. The root of the plant is not unsightly to science, though for chaplets and festoons we cut the stem short. And I must hazard the production of the bald fact amidst these pleasing reveries, though it should prove an Egyptian skull at our banquet. A man who stands united with his thought conceives magnificently of himself. He is conscious of a universal success, even though bought by uniform particular failures. No advantages, no powers, no gold or force, can be any match for him. I cannot choose but rely on my own poverty more than on your wealth. I cannot make your consciousness tantamount to mine. Only the star dazzles; the planet has a faint, moon-like ray. I hear what you say of the admirable parts and tried temper of the party you praise, but I see well that for all his purple cloaks I shall not like him, unless he is at last a poor Greek like me. I cannot deny it, O friend, that the vast shadow of the Phenomenal includes thee also in its pied and painted immensity, — thee, also, compared with whom all else is shadow. Thou art not Being, as Truth is, as Justice is, — thou art not my soul, but a picture and effigy of that. Thou hast come to me lately, and already thou art seizing thy hat and cloak. Is it not that the soul puts forth friends as the tree puts forth leaves, and presently, by the germination of new buds, extrudes the old leaf? The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone for a season, that it may exalt its conversation or society. This method betrays itself along the whole history of our personal relations. The instinct of affection revives the hope of union with our mates, and the returning sense of insulation recalls us from the chase. Thus every man passes his life in the search after friendship, and if he should record his true sentiment, he might write a letter like this to each new candidate for his love.

DEAR FRIEND: —

If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match my mood with thine, I should never think again of trifles in relation to thy comings and goings. I am not very wise; my moods are quite attainable; and I respect thy genius; it is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a delicious torment. Thine ever, or never.

Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity, and not for life. They are not to be indulged. This is to weave cobweb, and not cloth. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre of the human heart. The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen. We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves. In vain. We are armed all over with subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we meet, begin to play, and translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost all people descend to meet. All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures disappears as they approach each other. What a perpetual disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted! After interviews have been compassed with long foresight, we must be tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, unseasonable apathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits, in the heyday of friendship and thought. Our faculties do not play us true, and both parties are relieved by solitude.

I ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no difference how many friends I have, and what content I can find in conversing with each, if there be one to whom I am not equal. If I have shrunk unequal from one contest, the joy I find in all the rest becomes mean and cowardly. I should hate myself, if then I made my other friends my asylum.

"The valiant warrior famoused for fight,

After a hundred victories, once foiled,

Is from the book of honor razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled."

Our impatience is thus sharply rebuked. Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk, in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening. It would be lost if it knew itself before any of the best souls were yet ripe enough to know and own it. Respect the naturlangsamkeit which hardens the ruby in a million years, and works in duration, in which Alps and Andes come and go as rainbows. The good spirit of our life has no heaven which is the price of rashness. Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man. Let us not have this childish luxury in our regards, but the austerest worth; let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, impossible to be overturned, of his foundations.

The attractions of this subject are not to be resisted, and I leave, for the time, all account of subordinate social benefit, to speak of that select and sacred relation which is a kind of absolute, and which even leaves the language of love suspicious and common, so much is this purer, and nothing is so much divine.

I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frostwork, but the solidest thing we know. For now, after so many ages of experience, what do we know of nature, or of ourselves? Not one step has man taken toward the solution of the problem of his destiny. In one condemnation of folly stand the whole universe of men. But the sweet sincerity of joy and peace, which I draw from this alliance with my brother's soul, is the nut itself, whereof all nature and all thought is but the husk and shell. Happy is the house that shelters a friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that relation, and honor its law! He who offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up, like an Olympian, to the great games, where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes himself for contests where Time, Want, Danger, are in the lists, and he alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these. The gifts of fortune may be present or absent, but all the speed in that contest depends on intrinsic nobleness, and the contempt of trifles. There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason why either should be first named. One is Truth. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank, that being permitted to speak truth, as having none above it to court or conform unto. Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. I knew a man, who, under a certain religious frenzy, cast off this drapery, and, omitting all compliment and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was resisted, and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting, as indeed he could not help doing, for some time in this course, he attained to the advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true relations with him. No man would think of speaking falsely with him, or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms. But every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plaindealing, and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not? We can seldom go erect. Almost every man we meet requires some civility, — requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. My friend gives me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part. A friend, therefore, is a sort of paradox in nature. I who alone am, I who see nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with equal evidence to my own, behold now the semblance of my being, in all its height, variety, and curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed, and we so pure, that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes dear to me, I have touched the goal of fortune. I find very little written directly to the heart of this matter in books. And yet I have one text which I cannot choose but remember. My author says, — "I offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I effectually am, and tender myself least to him to whom I am the most devoted." I wish that friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must plant itself on the ground, before it vaults over the moon. I wish it to be a little of a citizen, before it is quite a cherub. We chide the citizen because he makes love a commodity. It is an exchange of gifts, of useful loans; it is good neighbourhood; it watches with the sick; it holds the pall at the funeral; and quite loses sight of the delicacies and nobility of the relation. But though we cannot find the god under this disguise of a sutler, yet, on the other hand, we cannot forgive the poet if he spins his thread too fine, and does not substantiate his romance by the municipal virtues of justice, punctuality, fidelity, and pity. I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the company of ploughboys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed amity which celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a curricle, and dinners at the best taverns. The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that can be joined; more strict than any of which we have experience. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom, and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery.

Friendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly, each so well tempered and so happily adapted, and withal so circumstanced, (for even in that particular, a poet says, love demands that the parties be altogether paired,) that its satisfaction can very seldom be assured. It cannot subsist in its perfection, say some of those who are learned in this warm lore of the heart, betwixt more than two. I am not quite so strict in my terms, perhaps because I have never known so high a fellowship as others. I please my imagination more with a circle of godlike men and women variously related to each other, and between whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this law of one to one peremptory for conversation, which is the practice and consummation of friendship. Do not mix waters too much. The best mix as ill as good and bad. You shall have very useful and cheering discourse at several times with two several men, but let all three of you come together, and you shall not have one new and hearty word. Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part in a conversation of the most sincere and searching sort. In good company there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes place when you leave them alone. In good company, the individuals merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with the several consciousnesses there present. No partialities of friend to friend, no fondnesses of brother to sister, of wife to husband, are there pertinent, but quite otherwise. Only he may then speak who can sail on the common thought of the party, and not poorly limited to his own. Now this convention, which good sense demands, destroys the high freedom of great conversation, which requires an absolute running of two souls into one.

No two men but, being left alone with each other, enter into simpler relations. Yet it is affinity that determines which two shall converse. Unrelated men give little joy to each other; will never suspect the latent powers of each. We talk sometimes of a great talent for conversation, as if it were a permanent property in some individuals. Conversation is an evanescent relation, — no more. A man is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his thought, he will regain his tongue.

Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a word or a look, his real sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being mine, is that the not mine is mine. I hate, where I looked for a manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There must be very two, before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them.

He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure that greatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to intermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the births of the eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course he has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor, if you must needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those merits room; let them mount and expand. Are you the friend of your friend's buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the holiest ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as property, and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure, instead of the noblest benefit.

Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation. Why should we desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding on them? Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his house, or know his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by him at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him, I want, but not news, nor pottage. I can get politics, and chat, and neighbourly conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal, and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us not vilify, but raise it to that standard. That great, defying eye, that scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities; wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell them all. Guard him as thy counterpart. Let him be to thee for ever a sort of beautiful enemy, untamable, devoutly revered, and not a trivial conveniency to be soon outgrown and cast aside. The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen, if the eye is too near. To my friend I write a letter, and from him I receive a letter. That seems to you a little. It suffices me. It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give, and of me to receive. It profanes nobody. In these warm lines the heart will trust itself, as it will not to the tongue, and pour out the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of heroism have yet made good.

Respect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as not to prejudice its perfect flower by your impatience for its opening. We must be our own before we can be another's. There is at least this satisfaction in crime, according to the Latin proverb; — you can speak to your accomplice on even terms. Crimen quos inquinat, aequat. To those whom we admire and love, at first we cannot. Yet the least defect of self-possession vitiates, in my judgment, the entire relation. There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never mutual respect, until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole world.

What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of spirit we can. Let us be silent, — so we may hear the whisper of the gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should say to the select souls, or how to say any thing to such? No matter how ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable degrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves of your lips. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. You shall not come nearer a man by getting into his house. If unlike, his soul only flees the faster from you, and you shall never catch a true glance of his eye. We see the noble afar off, and they repel us; why should we intrude? Late, — very late, — we perceive that no arrangements, no introductions, no consuetudes or habits of society, would be of any avail to establish us in such relations with them as we desire, — but solely the uprise of nature in us to the same degree it is in them; then shall we meet as water with water; and if we should not meet them then, we shall not want them, for we are already they. In the last analysis, love is only the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men. Men have sometimes exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify that in their friend each loved his own soul.

The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less easy to establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring, and daring, which can love us, and which we can love. We may congratulate ourselves that the period of nonage, of follies, of blunders, and of shame, is passed in solitude, and when we are finished men, we shall grasp heroic hands in heroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish alliances which no God attends. By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little you gain the great. You demonstrate yourself, so as to put yourself out of the reach of false relations, and you draw to you the first-born of the world, — those rare pilgrims whereof only one or two wander in nature at once, and before whom the vulgar great show as spectres and shadows merely.

It is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual, as if so we could lose any genuine love. Whatever correction of our popular views we make from insight, nature will be sure to bear us out in, and though it seem to rob us of some joy, will repay us with a greater. Let us feel, if we will, the absolute insulation of man. We are sure that we have all in us. We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we read books, in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and reveal us to ourselves. Beggars all. The persons are such as we; the Europe an old faded garment of dead persons; the books their ghosts. Let us drop this idolatry. Let us give over this mendicancy. Let us even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, 'Who are you? Unhand me: I will be dependent no more.' Ah! seest thou not, O brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be more each other's, because we are more our own? A friend is Janus-faced: he looks to the past and the future. He is the child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and the harbinger of a greater friend.

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on our own terms, and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I cannot afford to speak much with my friend. If he is great, he makes me so great that I cannot descend to converse. In the great days, presentiments hover before me in the firmament. I ought then to dedicate myself to them. I go in that I may seize them, I go out that I may seize them. I fear only that I may lose them receding into the sky in which now they are only a patch of brighter light. Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual astronomy, or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty gods. It is true, next week I shall have languid moods, when I can well afford to occupy myself with foreign objects; then I shall regret the lost literature of your mind, and wish you were by my side again. But if you come, perhaps you will fill my mind only with new visions, not with yourself but with your lustres, and I shall not be able any more than now to converse with you. So I will owe to my friends this evanescent intercourse. I will receive from them, not what they have, but what they are. They shall give me that which properly they cannot give, but which emanates from them. But they shall not hold me by any relations less subtile and pure. We will meet as though we met not, and part as though we parted not.

It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the other. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy own shining, and, no longer a mate for frogs and worms, dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean. It is thought a disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited. True love transcends the unworthy object, and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its independency the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may deify both.

A Good Friend Looks like:-

• RUTH (Ruth 1:1-22)- ‘who is loyal even when in times of difficulty. When Naomi told Ruth to stay behind, Ruth said these words, “Where you go, I will go, and where you stay i will stay”.’

• JONATHAN (1 Samuel 20:1-42) -’ who risks his life for a friend. He helped his friend, David’s life when he heard that his father King Saul wanted to kill him. He told David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it for you.”‘

• PAUL (1 Corinthians 4:14-6:20) - ‘a great man who helps friends grow in their faith, by encouraging them and being bold enough to correct them.’

• JESUS - What a friend we have in JESUS!! The epitome of a true friend. ‘Compassionate, encouraging, patient, loyal, understanding, loving’. To be a good friend, let us “clothe” ourselves with the things of God (Colossians 3:12-17)

Now, let’s go to the examples of a bad friend:-

• Pharaoh’s Cupbearer (Genesis 40:1-23) - Joseph promised him that he would soon be released from prison, but once the cupbearer went out from jail, he forgot all about Josesph. This guy does not show appreciation to his friend.

• Ahithopel ( 2 Samuel 15:12-17:23) - King David’s betrayer, he befriends an enemy who wanted to overthrow the kingdom. He was also ‘David’s trusted counsellor, but he gives lousy advice and spread rumours about the king’.

• Judas (Matthew 26:15-17, 25; Luke 22:47-48)- who acts like a friend but puts his own self-interests above everything else.

I really really hope that you could get the publication as the article embodies the essence of what friendship is all about. I thank the author for writing the beautiful article and hopefully, this piece would inspire you as much as it has inspire me.

Bad Friends

Related Bible Verses