by abundance of friends. For the friendship of a pair of friends draws them together and puts them together and holds them together, and is heightened by intercourse and kindliness. 1741 Plutarch: Morals. On Abundance of Friends. (Shilleto, Translator.) So also it is good not always to make a friend of the person who is expert in twining himself around us; but, after testing them, to attach ourselves to those who are worthy of our affection and likely to be serviceable to us. 1742 Plutarch: Morals. On Abundance of Friends. (Shilleto, Translator.) The flatterer's object is to please in everything he does; whereas the true friend always does what is right, and so often gives pleasure, often pain, not wishing the latter, but not shunning it either, if he deems it best. 1743 Plutarch: Morals. How One may Discern a Flatterer from a Friend. (Shilleto, Trans.) We ought to give our friend pain if it will benefit him, but not to the extent of breaking off our friendship; but just as we make use of some biting medicine that will save and preserve the life of the patient. And so the friend, like a musician, in bringing about an improvement to what is good and expedient, sometimes slackens the chords, sometimes tightens them, and is often pleasant, but always useful. 1744 Plutarch: Morals. How One may Discern a Flatterer from a Friend. (Shilleto, Trans.) A friend that you have to buy won't be worth what you pay for him, no matter what that may be. 1745 George D. Prentice: Prenticeana. Deliberate long before thou consecrate a friend, and when thy impartial justice concludes him worthy of thy bosom, receive him joyfully, and entertain him wisely; impart thy secrets boldly, and mingle thy thoughts with his: he is thy very self; and use him so; if thou firmly think him faithful, thou makest him so. 1746 Quarles: Enchiridion. Cent II. No. 52. Friends are rare, for the good reason that men are not common. 1747 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Pt. ix. ii. (Hapgood, Translator.) Friendship is the ideal; friends are the reality; reality always remains far apart from the ideal. 1748 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love, Friendship, Friends, No. 35. (Hapgood, Trans.) Have friends, not for the sake of receiving, but of giving. 1749 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love, Friendship, Friends, No. 13. (Hapgood, Trans.) Many, not being able to do without love, love at random. These wear out their people rapidly; a new friend each month would not be too much for them. At first all is flame. They unbosom themselves as much as they are capable of doing. This effusion once over, they yawn, complain, get angry, and depart. 1750 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Lore, Friendship, Friends, No. 45. (Hapgood, Trans.) "Necessarius," the friend, the man who is necessary. A deep word, an ingenious word, a touching word. When will it be French ? 1751 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love, Friendship, Friends, No. 34. (Hapgood, Trans.) Our friend, on the day of rupture, forges for himself a weapon against us from the fact that we are on bad terms with some one else, whether justly or not. 1752 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love, Friendship, Friends, No. 37. (Hapgood, Trans.) The man abandoned by his friends, one after another, without just cause, will acquire the reputation of being hard to please, changeable, ungrateful, unsociable. 1753 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love, Friendship, Friends, No. 36. (Hapgood, Trans.) We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower, that man who has lost his wife. . . . And that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing his friend, by what name do we call him? ... Here every human language holds its peace in impotence. 1754 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love, Friendship, Friends, No. 54. (Hapgood, Trans.) We vaunt our friend as a man of talent, less because he has talent than because he is our friend. 1755 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Your friend returns from a long journey. . . . Shall you confide in him at once? This is hardly prudent. What if he has changed? . . . Then feel him near his heart for an instant, at least. 1756 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Love, Friendship, Friends, No. 16. (Hapgood, Trans.) A friend whom you have been gaining during your whole life, you ought not to be displeased with in a moment. A stone is many years becoming a ruby; take care that you do not destroy it in an instant against another stone. 1757 Saadi: The Gulistan. Ch. 8. Rules for Conduct in Life. No. 57. Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes. They were easiest for his feet. 1758 John Selden: Table Talk. Friends. Know this, that he that is a friend to himself, is a friend to all men. 1759 Seneca: Works. Epistles. No. 6. (Thomas Neither can any man live happily who only respecteth himself, who converteth all things to his own profit. Thou must live unto another, if thou wilt live unto thyself. 1760 Seneca: Works. Epistles. No. 48. (Thomas Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. 1761 Shakespeare: Coriolanus. Act ii. Sc. 1. For to cast away a virtuous friend, I call as bad as to cast away one's own life, which one loves best. 1762 Sophocles: Edipus Tyrannus. Line 611. (Oxford Translation, p. 22.) Aid thy friends. 1763 Stobaus: Flor. III. 80. Maxims of the" Seven Wise Men." (F. A. Paley, Translator, in Greek Wit.) Have a good opinion of friends. 1764 Stobaus: Flor. III. 80. Maxims of the "Seven Wise Men." (F. A. Paley, Translator, in Greek Wit.) Make friends of equals. Make friends of the wise. Oblige a friend. Maxims of the "Seven Wise Maxims of the "Seven Wise 1767 Stobœus: Flor. III. 80. Maxims of the "Seven Wise Men." (F. A. Paley, Translator, in Greek Wit.) Amongst true friends there is no fear of losing anything. 1768 Jeremy Taylor: Of the Nature and Offices of Friendship. Give thy friend counsel wisely and charitably, but leave him to his liberty whether he will follow thee or no; and be not angry if thy counsel be rejected, for advice is no empire, and he is not my friend that will be my judge whether I will or no. 1769 Jeremy Taylor: Of the Nature and Offices of Friendship. Let no man choose him for his friend whom it shall be possible for him ever after to hate; for though the society may justly be interrupted, yet love is an immortal thing, and I will never despise him whom I could once think worthy of my love. 1770 Jeremy Taylor: Of the Nature and Offices of Now when men either are unnatural or irreligious they will not be friends; when they are neither excellent nor useful, they are not worthy to be friends; when they are strangers or unknown, they cannot be friends actually and practically; but yet, as any man hath anything of the good, contrary to those evils, so he can have and must have his share of friendship. Jeremy Taylor: Of the Nature and Offices of Friendship. 1771 Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise - a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow. 1772 Thackeray: Sketches and Travels in London. (Scribner's If I mayn't tell you what I feel, what is the use of a friend? 1773 Thackeray: Unpublished Letters. Magazine, June, 1888.) It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends. 1774 Thackeray: Miscellanies. Sketches and Travels in London. On Love, Marriage, Men, and Women. Pt. iii. May I never sit on a tribunal where my friends shall not find more favor from me than strangers. 1775 Themistocles: Reply to those who told him he would govern the Athenians well, if he ruled without respect of persons. 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. 1776 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. Journal, Dec. 24, 1850. A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend. 1777 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. Journal, Feb. 19, 1857. Friends! They are united for good, for evil. They can delight each other as none other can. Lying on lower levels is but a trivial offence compared with civility and compliments on the level of friendship. If my I visit my friend for joy, not for disturbance. coming hinders him in the least conceivable degree, I will exert myself to the utmost to stay away. I will get the Titans to help me stand aloof, will labor night and day to contract a rampart between us. If my coming casts but the shadow of a shadow before it, I will retreat swifter than the wind, and more untraceable. I will be gone irrevocably before he fears that I am coming. 1778 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. Journal, Feb. 23, 1857. Friends will be much apart. They will respect more each other's privacy than their communion, for therein is the fulfilment of our high aims and the conclusion of our arguments. That we know and would associate with, not only has high intents, but goes on high errands, and has much private business. The hours my friend devotes to me were snatched from a higher society. He is hardly a gift level to me, but I have to reach up to take it. 1779 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. Journal, Feb. 22, 1841. I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified. 1780 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. Journal, Feb. 7, 1841. My friends! my friends! It does not cheer me to see them. They but express their want of faith in me or in mankind. Their coldest, cruelest thought comes clothed in polite and easy-spoken words at last. I am silent to their invitations, because I do not feel invited; and we have no reasons to give for what we do not do. One says, "Love me out of this mire." The other says, "Come out of it and be lovely." 1781 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. Journal, Feb. 1, 1852. Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. 1782 Henry D. Thoreau: Letters. To Mrs. E. Castleton, Staten Island, May 22, 1843. 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 strange to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then. When I observe my friend's conduct towards others, then chiefly I learn the traits of his character, and in each case I am unprepared for the issue. . . . How little do we know each other. Who can tell how his friend would behave on any occasion. 1783 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. Journal, Feb. 6, 1841. 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 Friendship divine in this ? 1784 Henry D. Thoreau: Winter. other reward. Is not Journal, Feb. 7, 1841. Virtuous men alone possess friends. 1785 Voltaire: A Philosophical Dictionary. Friendship. |