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.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command.

Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.

I've arrived at the age where a platonic friendship can be sustained on the highest moral plane.

“To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.

“In our weeks of talk, movies and friendship, I watched as Wilma turned a medical ordeal into one more event in her life, but not its definition. I believe she was teaching me an intimate form of The Way. In her words: "Every day is a good day - because we are part of everything alive.” 

“Anybody can be with you when you’re right, but only friends are with you when you mess up.” 

“Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends : have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.”

“Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions, their reasons are always different.”

“Because our expression is imperfect we need friendship to fill up the imperfections.” 

“These are the things which might conceivably and truly make men forgive their enemies. We can only turn hate to love by understanding what are the things that men have loved; nor is it necessary to ask men to hate their loves in order to love one another. Just as two grocers are most likely to be reconciled when they remember for a moment that they are two fathers, so two nationals are most likely to be reconciled when they remember (if only for a moment) that they are two patriots.” 

“A queer and almost mad notion seems to have got into the modern head that, if you mix up everybody and everything more or less anyhow, the mixture may be called unity, and the unity may be called peace. It is supposed that, if you break down all doors and walls so that there is no domesticity, there will then be nothing but friendship. Surely somebody must have noticed by this time that the men living in a hotel quarrel at least as often as the men living in a street.” 

“It is not merely true that a creed unites men. Nay, a difference of creed unites men – so long as it is a clear difference. A boundary unites. Many a magnanimous Moslem and chivalrous Crusader must have been nearer to each other, because they were both dogmatists, than any two agnostics. “I say God is One,” and “I say God is One but also Three,” that is the beginning of a good quarrelsome, manly friendship.” 

“Only friendliness produces friendship. And we must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces friendliness.” 

For friendship implies individuality; whereas comradeship really implies the temporary subordination, if not the temporary swamping of individuality. Friends are the better for being two; but comrades are the better for being two million.”

“Comradeship is quite a different thing from friendship.

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.

Be with those who help your being.

Friend, our closeness is this: anywhere you put your foot, feel me in the firmness under you.