Friendship

O Friend! thou findest friends enough like me;
But I shall never find a Friend like thee.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, from The Poetry of the East (1856). Metrical Specimens ... Farewell Anguish of a Humble Heart

A man often hopes that his friend is more sincere than himself.
~ William Allingham, in By the Way: Verses, Fragments, and Notes (1912).

A friend loveth at all times, and in all places.
~ William Arnot, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth: Illustrations of the Book of Proverbs (Second Series; 1858). XIV. Friendship

A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view.
~ Wilma Askinas

Just three days ago, Will and I talked about the playoffs, and he was his typical self -- excited about the upcoming games, going through the matchups and, as usual, working angles that nobody else had thought of. That was Will -- passionate about the game and extremely knowledgeable but always looking for something new to add to his wealth of information and deliver it to the public.
~ Bill Belichick, quoted in The Boston Globe (11 January 2003). Globe's McDonough dies at 67

A friend I love well is my own easy chair.
~ William Cox (W.C.) Bennett, from Poems (1862 edition). My Own Easy Chair. A Fireside Song.

Friends are very important to me and it's very difficult to make a friendship. I don't take it lightly and I have great respect for it.
~ Bill Bixby, interview with Yvonne-Wyatt Rees, The Incredible Success of Bill Bixby (c. 1980).

Thy Friendship oft has made my heart to ake
Do be my Enemy for Friendships sake.
~ William Blake, from The Rossetti Manuscript (aka MS. Book; c. 1793-1811). Satiric Verses and Epigrams. To H-----

I left these happy islanders in much distress, for the utmost affection, regard and good fellowship was among us during my stay. ... their good sense and observations, joined with the most engaging dispositions in the world, will ever make them beloved by all who become acquainted with them as friends.
~ William Bligh, in Historical records of New South Wales, Volume 1, Part 2 (1892). Appendix A. Captain Bligh and the Bounty (Letter to Secretary Stephens; 15 October 1789)

There is nothing final between friends.
~ William Jennings Bryan, from The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan (1925).

Will McDonough's friends were never lonely -- he was there during the bright moments and always on hand during times of adversity. To be Will's friend was to possess a great gift.
~ William M. Bulger, quoted in The Boston Globe (11 January 2003). Globe's McDonough dies at 67

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, Shadows on the Rock (1931). Book III. The Long Winter. Chapter V

A true friend embraces our objects as his own. We feel another mind bent on the same end, enjoying it, ensuring it, reflecting it, and delighting in our devotion to it.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Friendship

From the loss of our friends teach us how to enjoy and improve those who remain.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Aspiration--Prayer

Our affections are our life. We live by these.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Friendship

Sincerity, truth, faithfulness, come into the very essence of friendship.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Friendship

Aye, aye, friendship without freedom is as dull as love without enjoyment, or wine without toasting.
~ William Congreve, The Way of the World (1700). Act I, scene ii

I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book VI. The Winter Walk At Noon

My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.
~ William Cowper, Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk (1782).

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back,
His sense of your great merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
~ William Cowper, in Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1825 edition). Friendship

And since I'll have so many friends,
When on my death-bed lying --
I wish my life had more love now,
And less when I am dying.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, from Child Lovers: and other poems (1916). Friends

The sign of a true friendship is when you can forgive success.
~ Guillermo del Toro

And friends grow distant till they silently vanish forever.
~ William A. Dunn, in The Atlantic Monthly (January 1900). On Visiting A Friend

Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us. Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy; We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey Of Human Life And Destiny (1929).

A person or business without friends is insolvent.
~ William Feather

Few things in life are more embarrassing than the necessity of having to inform an old friend that you have just got engaged to his fiancee.
~ W.C. Fields, Big Money (1931)

The wise and intelligent are coming belatedly to realize that alcohol, and not the dog, is man's best friend. Rover is taking a beating -- and he should.
~ W.C. Fields

Happiness as well as greatness, enjoyment as well as renown, have no friends so sure as Integrity, Diligence, and Independence.
~ William Gaston, Address Delivered Before The Philanthropic And Dialectic Societies, at Chapel Hill NC (20 June 1832).

Not even love
Should rank above
True Friendship's name!
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, Iolanthe (1882 opera). Act 2

Caring for but never trying to own may be a further way to define friendship.
~ William Glasser, M.D., Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom (1998). Chapter 1: We Need a New Psychology

Who hath a better friend than a cat?
~ William Hardwin

Friendship? -- I have too deeply read Mankind
To be amus'd with Friendship; 'tis a Name
Invented merely to betray Credulity:
'Tis Intercourse of Interests -- not of Souls.
~ William Havard, Regulus, a Tragedy (1744). Act II, scene i

Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup break up more than one intimacy.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker, Volume I (1826). On the Spirit of Obligations

I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker, Volume I (1826). On the Pleasure of Hating

It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to a different species.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

Nothing gives such a blow to friendship as the detecting another in an untruth. It strikes at the root of our confidence ever after.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

Our friends are generally ready to do every thing for us, except the very thing we wish them to do. There is one thing in particular they are always disposed to give us, and which we are as unwilling to take, namely, advice.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

The youth is better than the old age of friendship.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our friends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please — that is, as they please or displease us.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

True friendship is self-love at second hand.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker, Volume I (1826). On the Spirit of Obligations

I am beauty and love;
I am friendship, the comforter;
I am that which forgives and forgets.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Henley, from A Book of Verses (1888). Life and Death (Echoes). XXXIX: The Spirit of Wine. To R.A.M.S.

I think it may fairly be said that no two people are well-grounded friends until they have done some hard work together.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Hocking, from The Church and The New World Mind (1944). Culture and Peace

One thing everybody in the world wants and needs is friendliness.
~ William E. Holler

If I don't have friends, then I ain't got nothing.
~ Billie Holiday

One ought never to speak of the faults of one's friends: it mutilates them; they can never be the same afterwards.
~ William Dean Howells, A Foregone Conclusion (1875).

If my friends have alabaster boxes laid away, filled with sympathy and affection which they intend to lay over my dead body, I would rather they bring them now to my weary and troubled heart, and open them that I may be refreshed and cheered by them.
~ (Col.) William C. Hunter, PEP: Poise - Efficiency - Peace; A Book of Hows Not Whys For Physical and Mental Efficiency (1911).

Say wot you like, a man's best friend is 'imself. There's nobody else'll do as much for 'im, or let 'im off easier when he makes a mistake.
~ William Wymark ("W.W.") Jacobs, from Deep Waters (1919). Dirty Work

[H]uman beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendship and intimacies, and soon their places will know them no more, and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to "keep" by force of mere inertia.
~ William James, in The Letters of William James, Vol. 2 (1920). XIII. To Miss Frances R. Morse, December 23, 1899

We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities; it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.
~ William James

Wherever you are, it is your own friends who make your world.
~ William James, in The Thought and Character of William James (1935; letter to Pauline Goldmark; 25 May 1899).

Friends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own.
~ William Lamb (2nd Viscount, Lord Melbourne), in The Young Melbourne (1939).

It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930).

[I]t's not true that people improve as you know them better: they don't. That's why one should only have acquaintances and never make friends.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Christmas Holiday (1939).

[W]e know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

When friends separate for what is likely to be the last time, without hope of healing the breach between them, a species of false friendliness develops that is like the single bud that forms on a sick plant before its leaves wither and fall off.
~ William Keepers Maxwell, Jr., The Folded Leaf (1945).

The best way to keep your friends is not to give them away.
~ Wilson Mizner

We're the best of friends
Insisting that the world be turnin' our way.
~ Willie Nelson, in Honeysuckle Rose (1980 album). On the Road Again

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885). The Friend

As yet woman is not capable of friendship. But tell me, ye men, who of you are capable of friendship?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Hold a true friend with both your hands.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

It may be true that a touch of indifference is the safest foundation on which to build a lasting and delicate friendship.
~ William (W.) Robertson Nicoll, in People and Books (1926).

In word and Will I am a friend to you,
And one friend Old is worth a hundred new.
~ William Oldys, in A Literary Antiquary. Memoir of William Oldys, Norroy King-at-Arms. Together with his Diary (1862).

If you have good friends keep them. If you don't have good friends, get them. True friendship, a rare gift, is never taken lightly. Your friends will tell you the truth about yourself, and not charge you $200 an hour. They will tell you the truth but they will stick by you when the rest of the world turns away.
~ Bill O'Reilly

He was one of my best friends. ... Those are the people you can count on the fingers of one hand.
~ Bill Parcells, quoted in The Boston Globe (11 January 2003). Globe's McDonough dies at 67

A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part I. Qualities of a Friend

Friendship ... is an Union of Spirits, a Marriage of Hearts, and the Bond thereof Vertue.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part I. Friendship

This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are in the best sense ever present, because immortal.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part II. Union of Friends

We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, -- for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, -- for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man's body were to be divided into two parts, we are all one flesh and blood.
~ William Penn, "Great Treaty" between Penn and the Leni Lenape (Delaware) at the village of Shackamaxon (c. 30 November 1682; some say 23 June 1683).

You got to sorter give and take in this old world. We can get mighty rich, but if we haven't got any friends, we will find we are poorer than anybody.
~ Will Rogers, in The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949).

How rare and wonderful is that flash of a moment when we realize we have discovered a friend.
~ William E. Rothschild

Let me choose my friends in my own way.
~ William Saroyan, Jim Dandy, Fat Man in a Famine (1947).

Many friendships are swift and accidental, the result of a chance meeting, followed by a permanent separation.
~ William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (1952).

His eyes were fixed and horrible, as one who hails the end;
The frost had set him rigid as a log;
And there, half lying on his breast, his last and only friend,
There crouched and whined a mangy yellow dog.
~ Robert William Service, Ballads of a Cheechako (1909). The Man from Eldorado

I have some friends, some honest friends, and honest friends are few;
My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that's not too new.
~ Robert William Service

A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Act IV, scene iii

A friendly eye could never see such faults.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Act IV, scene iii

Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery.
Words are easy, like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, VI.

For when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act I, scene iii

Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act II, scene i

He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep:
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee does bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, VI.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Act III, scene ii

I am not of that feather to shake off
My friend when he must need me.
~ William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens. Act I, scene i

If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it
To the last article.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act III, scene iii

My friends were poor but honest.
~ William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well. Act I, scene iii

The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Act II, scene iii

They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.
~ William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (1593).

There is flattery in friendship.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V. Act III, scene vii

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene iii

[T]hy friendship makes us fresh.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part I. Act III, scene iii

We wanted to put something definitive down for the record, but the conditions were two friends talking one-on-one. It makes it a revealing, honest interchange of feelings and thoughts that no interview would have been capable of doing.
~ William Shatner, in Creative Light Entertainment Released on November 6: MIND MELD: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime (17 September 2001)

The services which cement friendship are reciprocal services. A feeling of dependence is scarcely compatible with friendship.
~ William Henry Smith, Thorndale: Or, The Conflict of Opinions (1857). Book II. Chapter VI. Meeting with a Utopian Philosopher

Live not without a friend! The Alpine rock must own
Its mossy grace or else be nothing but a stone.
~ William Wetmore Story, from Poems By William Wetmore Story (1856). Couplets. X

Something like home that is not home, like alone that is not alone, is to be wished, and only found in a Friend, or in his house.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, in The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart., Vol. I (1720). Miscellanea, Part III. Heads, Designed for an Essay on Conversation

The great happiness is to have a friend to observe and tell one of ones faults, whom one has reason to esteem, and is apt to believe.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, in The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart., Vol. I (1720). Miscellanea, Part III. Heads, Designed for an Essay on Conversation

If I mayn't tell you what I feel, what is the use of a friend?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, in A Collection Of Letters Of Thackeray, 1847-1855 (1887). Paris, 1849

It is a friendly heart that has plenty of friends.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, in Punch, Volume XVII (1849). Mr. Brown's Letters To A Young Man About Town: On Love, Marriage, Men and Women

[U]nder the magnetism of friendship, the modest man becomes bold, the shy confident, the lazy active, or the impetuous prudent and peaceful.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1848). Chapter XXIII. Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass

What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under the operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid, becomes wise, active, and resolute, in another's behalf?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1848). Chapter XXIII. Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass

We are both upon the stage, and must act such parts as are assigned us in this tragedy. Let us do it in a way of honour and without personal animosities.
~ William Waller, Letter to Sir Ralph Hopton (16 June 1643).

A friend is one with whom you are comfortable, to whom you are loyal, through whom you are blessed, and for whom you are grateful.
~ William Arthur Ward

A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.
~ William Arthur Ward

Heck. What's a little extortion among friends?
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (17 February 1986).

Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (23 April 1989).

I don't deliberately select my friends because of their background. If I enjoy someone's company, then that's all that counts. I have many different friends who aren't from the same background as me and we get on really well -- it's brilliant.
~ Prince William, Interview to the Press Association (30 May 2003).

Time doesn't take away from true friendship, nor does separation.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Memoirs (1975).

We've got to have
We plot to have
For it's so dreary not to have
That certain thing called the Boy Friend.
~ Sandy Wilson, The Boyfriend (1954 song)

Friendship is to be purchased only by friendship. A man may have authority over others, but he can never have their hearts but by giving his own.
~ (Bishop) Thomas Wilson, in Maxims of Piety and of Christianity (first published in 1781).

Think of me as your friend, I pray,
For else my life is little worth:
So shall your memory light my way,
Although we meet no more on earth.
~ William Winter, from My Witness; a Book of Verse (1871). The Heart's Anchor

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on.
~ Bill Withers, in Still Bill (1972 album). Lean On Me

My friendship it is not in my power to give. This is a gift which no man can make; it is not in our own power. A sound and healthy friendship is the growth of time and circumstance. It will spring up and thrive like a wild-flower when these favour, and when they do not it is in vain to look for it.
~ William Wordsworth, Letter to Thomas De Quincey (29 July 1803).

There must be some characteristic peculiar to all the members of a particular nest, possibly a specific odour, which determines the instinctive expression of 'friendship.'
~ Wilhelm Max Wundt, from Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology (1894 translation). Lecture XXIII, Section II

[A] true friend to a man, is a friend to all his friends.
~ William Wycherley, The Plain Dealer (1674). Act I, scene i

False friends, like the shadow upon a dial, are ever present to the sunshine of our fortunes, and as soon gone when we begin to be under a cloud.
~ William Wycherley, in The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley, Esq. in Prose and Verse (1728). Maxims and Reflections

Han't I been always thy Friend ... ?
~ William Wycherley, The Country Wife (1673). Act IV, scene iii

And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time's bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). The Poet Pleads with His Friend for Old Friends

Others because you did not keep
That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;
Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wild Swans at Coole (1919 edition). A Deep-sworn Vow

So great a sweetness flows
I shake from head to foot.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Responsibilities (1914). Friends

Think where man's glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.
~ William Butler Yeats, from A Speech and Two Poems (1937). The Municipal Gallery Re-visited

When friends plan and do together, their minds become one mind and the last secret disappears.
~ William Butler Yeats, Reveries Over Childhood and Youth (1916). IX