Great Throughts Treasury

"He is the greater friend whose censure heals than he whose flattery anoints the head." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"If all the gold in the world were melted down into a solid cube, it would be about the size of an eight-room house. If a man got possession of all that gold - billions of dollars' worth, he could not buy a friend, character, peace of mind, clear conscience, or a sense of eternity." - Charles F. Banning

"I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow." - William Blake

"Laughter is man's friend, for it lightens all his burdens... Who cannot laugh stoutly cannot weep stoutly." - Otto Blumenthal

"As thou desirest the love of God and man, beware of pride. It is a tumor in the mind, that breaks and ruins all thine actions; a worm in thy treasury, that eats and ruins thine estate. It loves no man, and is beloved of none; it disparages another's virtues by detraction, and thine own vainglory. It is the friend of the flatterer, the mother of envy, the nurse of fury, the sin of devils, and devil of mankind. It hates superiors, scorns inferiors, and owns no equal. In short, till thou hate it, God hate thee." - Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England

"The reproach of a friend should be strictly just, but not too frequent." - Eustace Budgell

"Give, and you may keep your friend if you lose your money; lend, and the chances are that you lose your friend if ever you get back your money." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

"There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

"He that forgets his friend is ungrateful to him; but he that forgets his Saviour is unmerciful to himself." - John Bunyan

"Beware of suretyship for thy best friend. He that payeth another man’s debt seeketh his own decay. But if thou canst not otherwise choose, rather lend the money thyself upon good bonds, although thou borrow it; so shalt thou secure thyself, and pleasure thy friend." - William Cecil, Lord Burghley, 1st Baron Burghley, also Lord William Cecil Burleigh

"Trust not any man with thy life, credit, or estate. For it is mere folly for a man to enthrall himself to his friend, as though, occasion being offered, he should not dare to become an enemy." - William Cecil, Lord Burghley, 1st Baron Burghley, also Lord William Cecil Burleigh

"Free and fair discussion will ever be found the firmest friend to truth." -

"Choose a friend. He will help you. Alas, he deserts you. Choose an enemy. He will fight against you. Lo, he corrects and perfects you." - Sri Chinmoy, born Chinmoy Kumar Ghose

"Ignorance is an enemy, even to its owner. Knowledge is a friend, even to its hater. Ignorance hates knowledge because it is too pure. Knowledge fears ignorance because it is too sure." - Sri Chinmoy, born Chinmoy Kumar Ghose

"We should render a service to a friend to bind him closer to us, and to an enemy in order to make a friend of him." - Cleobulus NULL

"Friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other's dignity to the point of not wanting anything from him." - Cyril Connolly, fully Cyril Vernon Connolly

"A strong foe is better than a weak friend." - Edward Dahlberg

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend." -

"We never seem to know what anything means till we have lost it. The full significance of those words, property, ease, health - the wealth of meaning that lies in the fond epithets, parent, child friend, we never know till they are taken away; till in place of the bright, visible being, comes the awful and desolate shadow where nothing is - where we stretch our hands in vain, ands strain our eyes upon dark and dismal vacuity." - Orville Dewey

"A true friend is distinguished in the crisis of hazard and necessity; when the gallantry of his aid may show the worth of his soul and the loyalty of his heart." -

"The sure friend is discerned in unsure circumstances." -

"You ought to choose both physician and friend, not the most agreeable, but the most useful." -

"Life has no blessing like a prudent friend." - Euripedes NULL

"The stillest tongue can be the truest friend." - Euripedes NULL

"Religion is more like a response to a friend than it is like obedience to an expert." - Austin Madsen Farrer

"We are never less alone than when we are in the society of a single, faithful friend; never less deserted than when we re carried in the arms of the All-Powerful." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

"It is well known to all great men, that by conferring an obligation they do not always procure a friend, but are certain of creating many enemies." - Henry Fielding

"I am persuaded that he who is capable of being a bitter enemy can never possess the necessary virtues that constitute a true friend." - William Melmoth, wrote under pseudonym Sir Thomas Fitzosborne

"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, fully Edward Morgan Forster

"Let me live in my house by the side of the road, Where the race of men go by; They are good, they are bad; they are weak, they are strong, Wise, foolish,--so am I; Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat, Or hurl the cynic's ban? Let me live in my house by the side of the road, And be a friend to man." - Sam Walter Foss

"The friendships that last are those wherein each friend respects the other's dignity. Every man ought to be friend with a nun and a whore and while talking with them forget which is which." - Brendan Francis Behan

"Do good to thy friend to keep him -- to thine enemy to gain him." - Benjamin Franklin

"Wisdom - a man's best friend." - William Ewart Gladstone

"The flowers of life are but visionary [illusions]. How many pass away and leave no trace behind! How few yield any fruit, and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there are flowers enough; and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed?" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Everybody, my friend, everybody lives for something better to come. That's why we want to be considerate of every man - Who knows what's in him, why he was born and what he can do?" -

"Hope is a pleasant acquaintance, but an unsafe friend. Hope is not the man for your banker, though he may do for a traveling companion." - Thomas Haliburton, fully Thomas Chandler Haliburton, pseudonym "Sam Slick"

"A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity." -

"Nobody who is afraid of laughing, and heartily too, at his friend, can be said to have a true and thorough love for him." - Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

"He who loses money losses much. He who loses a friend loses more. But he who loses faith loses all." - Henry H. Haskins

"He who puts a friend to public shame is as guilty as a murderer." -

"Music is for the betterment and enrichment of the individual, just as education and reading are. When people come together to play music as they do to play bridge, civilization will have taken its longest stride forward since the beginning of time. Music is something to live with always, and children should be taught to regard it as a close and inalienable friend." - Jascha Heifetz

"If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"Education: To be at home in all lands and ages; to count Nature as a familiar acquaintance and Art an intimate friend; to gain a standard for the appreciation of other men's work and the criticism of one's own; to carry the keys of the world's library in one's pocket, and feel its resources behind one in whatever task he undertakes; to make hosts of friends among the men of one's own age who are the leaders in all walks of life; to lose oneself in general enthusiasms and co-operate with others for common ends." - William De Witt Hyde

"Gold is the most cowardly and treacherous of all metals. It makes no treaty that it does not break. It has no friend whom it does not sooner or later betray." - John James Ingalls

"Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger." -

"My friend, there will come one day to you a Messenger, whom you cannot treat with contempt. He will say, “Come with me;” and all your pleas of business cares and earthly loves will be of no avail. When his cold hand touches yours, the key of the counting-room will drop forever, and he will lead you away from all your investments, your speculations, your bank-notes and real estate, and with him you will pass into eternity, up to the bar of God. You will not be too busy to die." - Abbott Elliot Kittredge

"Along with being forever on the move, one is forever in a hurry, leaving things inadvertently behind - friend or fishing tackle, old raincoat or old allegiance." - Louis Kronenberger

"Knowledge is leagued with the universe, and findeth a friend in all things; but ignorance is everywhere a stranger, unwelcome; ill at ease and out of place." - Gottfried Leibniz, fully Gottfried Wilhalm von Leibniz, Baron von Leibnitz

"I often feel that death is not the enemy of life, but its friend, for it is the knowledge that our years are limited which makes them so precious." -

"If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend." - Abraham Lincoln