Image by Talking with an old friend, I suddenly felt the urge to find some quotes about friendship. These are several I found from books. I tried to find a quote by George Orwell, but he didn’t write about friendship much. Still reviewing several pages of his essays, my love for his work was rekindled–I wanted to reread them. His essays are so much better than his fictions about farm animals or a futuristic dystopia. Probably other writers suffer the same fate–popular for the wrong books, admired for the wrong reasons.
My friends have come to me unsought….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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man of active and resilient mind outwears his friendships just as certainly as he outwears his love affairs, his politics and his epistemology.
H.L. Mencken
Friend of my youth! when young we rov’d,
Lord Byron
Like striplings, mutually belov’d…
The recollection seems, alone,
Dearer than all the joys I’ve known,
When distant far from you:
Though pain, ’tis still a pleasing pain,
To trace those days and hours again,
And sigh again, adieu!
Near this Spot
Lord Byron
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18th, 1808.
Haoyan Do 
To friendship
despite all odds
to oneself
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Yes, thank you. Friendship to oneself and self reliance is the most important thing.
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Very interesting quotes. I agree with the first one- we always tend to put friends up on a pedestal and things just seem better with them.
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Wow, me too. And we have to know that they are just as human as we are and we can’t take their words too seriously. I used to have a very conservative friend who led me astray and it took me a long time to figure out that her conservative ideas are completely unsuitable for my life.
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Loved the Lord Byron quote…and Emerson because I generally like most of what he says and espouses
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Friendship – Travel companion at their best.
Great quotes.
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Wow, so true. Friends are much more pleasant as a travel companion than anybody else.
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Those are some great choices for friendship quotes!
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Thank you. Love friendship quotes and I wish there are more.
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I think you are absolutely right about Orwell, one of my favorites too.
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Wow, love your comment. I just love Orwell so much that he is not afraid of the unpleasant things and he actually talks about the layers of unpleasant things and let people know that something are more unpleasant than others. He is such a wonderful writer and there’s no other writer like him.
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Such beautiful ways to honor friendship. I can count my friends in one hand and they are more than enough.
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You are right. I only have a handful of close friends, but my biggest issue with my friends is that they are all so conservative, like the family I take my whole life to crawl out of. I am living in a conservative bubble of the Asian community here and there’s no way to get out.
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‘A man of active and resilient mind outwears his friendships just as certainly as he outwears his love affairs, his politics and his epistemology.’
Quite true! Good ones! 🙂
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Hahaha. We outlive a lot of things and have the luck and the misfortune to see a full cycle of things.
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Lovely quotes! My favourite one is Lord Byron’s.
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Yes, true. Love Lord Byron. His poems are so readable, to me at least.
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Friendship is the relation of relations. Life goes smoothly when two people become friends.
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Yes, friendship is indispensable and it brings out many good qualities in us.
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Yes.😃
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Love the Emerson quote.
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Love Emerson, although I don’t agree with some of the things he said. Still love a lot of things he said.
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Love this..thanks
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Thanks, always.
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That photo is a perfect day…
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Hahaha. Love the photo. Man and his friend.
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