For I am alone, of all my friends, my own friend. Faithful friends are hard to find: Every man will be thy friend, Friendship based solely upon gratitude is like a photograph; with time it fades. Woe to him that is alone, is verified upon none so much as upon the friendless person. When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo, As to the complaints about broken friendship: Friendship is often outgrown; and his former child's clothes will no more fit a man than some of his former friendships. Alas! they had been friends in youth: Apollodorus Shakespeare Carmen Sylva South's Sermons Shelley Sir Samuel He who ceases to be a friend has never been one. Walter H. C. Chatfield Taylor Francis Thomas Moore La Roche foucauld Thoreau Seneca Charlotte Ovid John Webster Scottish Proverb Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends." The friends who in our sunshine live, When winter comes are flown; And he who has but tears to give Must weep those tears alone. Friendships that have been renewed require more care than those that have never been broken off. The only danger in friendship is that it will end. The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one. No more thy friendship soothes to rest Are doubly felt since thou art lost. There is no friend at hand to console me, none who with conversation will beguile the slowly passing time. From decayed fortunes every flatterer shrinks; Men cease to build where the foundation sinks. Nae man can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of him till he's unhappy. My designs and labors and aspirations are my only friends. Virtue, how frail it is! It is exceedingly noteworthy that in the rule laid down here by our Lord, the responsibility of reconciliation is laid primarily, not upon the man who has done wrong, but upon the man who has received the wrong. Faint friends when they fall out most cruel foemen be. With a little more patience and a little less temper, a gentler and wiser method might be found in almost every case; and the knot that we cut by some fine heady quarrel-scene in private life, or, in public affairs, by some denunciatory act against what we are pleased to call our neighbor's vices, might yet have been unwoven by the hand of sympathy. And hearts, so lately mingled, seem As though its waters ne'er could sever, Affection once extinguished can lead to nothing but indifference or contempt. 139 Longfellow Shelley Canon MacColl in "Life Here and Here after" Spenser Robert Stevenson Thomas Honoré de Balzac 140 Thomas Jefferson Goldsmith Walter in "Imaginary Conversations" Nahum Alfred Tennyson Edward Olive Schreiner The dissolutions of personal friendship are among the most painful occurrences in human life. - He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack For he knew, when he pleased he could whistle them back. Never let us think that the time can come when we shall lose our friends. Glory, literature, philosophy, have this advantage over friendship: remove one object from them and others fill the void; remove one from friendship, one only, and not the earth, nor the universality of worlds, no, nor the intellect that soars above and comprehends them, can replace it. Friendship's the privilege Of private men; for wretched greatness knows No blessing so substantial. He that wrongs his friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast. There is no folly equal to that of throwing away friendship in a world where friendship is so rare. Friendship is good, a strong stick; but when the hour comes to lean hard it gives. In the day of our bitterest need all souls are alone. |