The Golden Link of Friendship Part 7

"Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and dearest!"

_Longfellow_

Friendship like love is but a name, Unless to one you stint the flame.

The child, whom many fathers share, Hath seldom known a father's care.

'Tis thus in friendships; who depend On many, rarely find a friend.

_Gay_

There must be many a pair of friends Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm Moon-births and the long evening-ends.

So, for their sake, be May still May!

_Robert Browning_

When two friends part, they should lock up each other's secrets and exchange keys.

_Anon_

Joy of Friendship

Life is to be fortified by many friendships.

To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence.

_Sydney Smith_

The joy that comes from a true communion of heart with another is perhaps one of the purest and greatest in the world.

_Hugh Black_

What joy is better than the news of friends Whose memories were a solace to me oft, As mountain-baths to wild fowls in their flight.

_Robert Browning_

Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.

_A. Bronson Alcott_

Who is not ready to acknowledge that friendship is the delight of youth, the pillar of age, the bloom of prosperity, the charm of solitude, the solace of adversity, the best benefactor and comforter in this vale of tears?

_Anon_

Reasonableness of Friendship

However well proved a friendship may appear, there are confidences which it should not hear, and sacrifices which should not be required of it.

_Joseph Roux_

Costly followers are not to be liked; lest while a man maketh his train longer, he maketh his wings shorter.

_Bacon_

Animals are such agreeable friends--they ask no questions, they pa.s.s no criticisms.

_George Eliot_

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

_Oliver Wendell Holmes_

A true friend will appear such in leaving us to act according to our intimate conviction,--will cherish this n.o.bleness of sentiment, will never wish to subst.i.tute his power for our own.

_William Ellery Channing_

The man who prefers his dearest friend to the call of duty will soon show that he prefers himself to his dearest friend.

_F. W. Robertson_

If you could keep your friend, approach him with a telescope, never with the microscope.

_Anon_

Give not thy friend so much power that if one day he should become a foe, thou mayst not be able to resist him.

_Saadi_

Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorises you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.

_Oliver Wendell Holmes_

Keep your undrest, familiar style for strangers, but respect your friend.

_Coventry Patmore_