Quotes about friendship

27 real sentences about friendship, left by people who came before us, from 7th century BC to 1897, oldest first. Each one has its source and the original text.

Adad-shum-usur Adadi-shum-uṣur

7th century BC · Nineveh, Assyria

They that stand in the palace, all of them, love me not. There is not a friend of mine among them, to whom I might give a present, and they would receive it, and take up my cause.

A letter to the king · in place of the original: the English translation by C. H. W. Johns (1904)

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Nameless people 詩經無名氏

c. 7th century BC · Zhou China

You threw me a quince, and I gave you a fine jade in return. Not to repay you, but so that we may be dear to each other for ever.

投我以木瓜，報之以瓊琚。匪報也，永以爲好也！

"The Quince" (Mu gua), Airs of Wey, in the Book of Songs

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Aristotle Ἀριστοτέλης

c. 330 BC · ancient Greece

For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

ἄνευ γὰρ φίλων οὐδεὶς ἕλοιτʼ ἂν ζῆν, ἔχων τὰ λοιπὰ ἀγαθὰ πάντα

Nicomachean Ethics, book 8, chapter 1

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Epicurus Ἐπίκουρος

270 BC · Athens, ancient Greece

I write this to you on a happy day that is also the last of my life. The strangury and the dysentery have kept with me, and nothing could be added to their severity. But set against all of them is the joy in my soul at the memory of the conversations we have had.

Τὴν μακαρίαν ἄγοντες καὶ ἅμα τελευταίαν ἡμέραν τοῦ βίου ἐγράφομεν ὑμῖν ταυτί. στραγγουρία τε παρηκολουθήκει καὶ δυσεντερικὰ πάθη ὑπερβολὴν οὐκ ἀπολείποντα τοῦ ἐν ἑαυτοῖς μεγέθους. ἀντιπαρετάττετο δὲ πᾶσι τούτοις τὸ κατὰ ψυχὴν χαῖρον ἐπὶ τῇ τῶν γεγονότων ἡμῖν διαλογισμῶν μνήμῃ.

The last letter, to Idomeneus, in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 10.22

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Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso

c. AD 9 · Roman Empire · After his friends turned their backs when the emperor banished him

As long as you are safe, you will count many friends. If the weather turns cloudy, you will be alone.

donec eris sospes, multos numerabis amicos: tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris.

Tristia (Sorrows) 1.9

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Thiruvalluvar திருவள்ளுவர்

about 2,000 years ago · Tamil country, South India

Like the hand that flies to catch a slipping garment, friendship is what removes a friend's trouble on the spot.

உடுக்கை இழந்தவன் கைபோல ஆங்கே இடுக்கண் களைவதாம் நட்பு.

Tirukkural 788

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Wang Bo 王勃

670s · Tang China

While there is one within the four seas who knows my heart, the ends of the earth are like next door.

海內存知己，天涯若比隣。

"Seeing Off Vice-Prefect Du, Leaving for His Post in Shu"

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Meng Haoran 孟浩然

c. 730 · Tang China

My old friend cooked a chicken and millet and invited me to his farmhouse. Green trees close in at the edge of the village. Blue hills slant beyond the town wall. We spread the mats facing the threshing floor and the garden, and, cup in hand, talk of mulberry and hemp. When the Double Ninth comes round, I shall come again for the chrysanthemums.

故人具雞黍，邀我至田家。綠樹村邊合，青山郭外斜。開筵面場圃，把酒話桑麻。待到重陽日，還來就菊花。

"Visiting an Old Friend's Farm"

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Du Fu 杜甫

745 · Tang China · In the autumn he spent wandering with Li Bai, eleven years his elder

Autumn comes and we look at each other, still tumbleweeds on the wind. We have not made the elixir, and are shamed before Ge Hong. Drinking hard and singing wildly, you pass your days in vain. All that swagger and defiance: for whom is it meant?

秋來相顧尚飄蓬，未就丹砂媿葛洪。痛飲狂歌空度日，飛揚跋扈爲誰雄。

"For Li Bai"

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Li Bai 李白

c. 745 · Tang China · A poem handed down as Li Bai's

On the top of Fanke Hill I met Du Fu, a bamboo hat on his head in the noonday sun. Tell me, why so thin since we parted? It must be all the pain of writing poems.

飯顆山頭逢杜甫，頂戴笠子日卓午。借問別來太瘦生，總爲從前作詩苦。

"Teasing Du Fu"

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Li Bai 李白

c. 746 · Tang China

The wine of Lu cannot make me drunk. The songs of Qi stir my feelings to no purpose. My thoughts of you are like the Wen River: in a broad flood I send them south.

魯酒不可醉，齊歌空復情。思君若汶水，浩蕩寄南征。

"Below the Walls of Shaqiu, Sent to Du Fu," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Gao Shi 高適

747 · Tang China

Ten miles of yellow cloud, the white sun dim. The north wind drives the wild geese, and the snow comes thick. Do not worry that there will be no one who knows you on the road ahead. Who under heaven does not know you?

十里黃雲白日曛，北風吹雁雪紛紛。莫愁前路無知己，天下誰人不識君。

"Farewell to Dong Da," the first poem, in the Complete Tang Poems

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Li Bai 李白

c. 755 · Tang China · On seeing Wang Lun, a villager who had been his host, come out to see him off

Li Bai was aboard and about to set off when suddenly, from the bank, came stamping feet and song. The water of Peach Blossom Pool is a thousand feet deep, and not so deep as Wang Lun's love in seeing me off.

李白乘舟將欲行，忽聞岸上踏歌聲。桃花潭水深千尺，不及汪倫送我情。

"For Wang Lun"

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Du Fu 杜甫

759 · Tang China · On hearing that Li Bai had been sent into exile

The south of the river is a land of fevers, and from the banished man there is no news. My old friend has come into my dream: he knows how constantly I think of him.

江南瘴癘地，逐客無消息。故人入我夢，明我長相憶。

"Dreaming of Li Bai," the first poem, in the Complete Tang Poems

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Bai Juyi 白居易

815 · Tang China · On the boat to Jiangzhou, where he had been demoted

I take your scroll of poems and read it by the lamp. The poems are finished, the lamp is low, and it is not yet dawn. My eyes ache; I put out the lamp and still sit in the dark, to the sound of waves, driven by a head wind, beating on the boat.

把君詩卷燈前讀，詩盡燈殘天未明。眼痛滅燈猶闇坐，逆風吹浪打船聲。

"Reading Yuan Zhen's Poems on a Boat," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Yuan Zhen 元稹

815 · Tang China

A guttering lamp, no flame, shadows flickering: this is the evening I hear you are banished to Jiujiang. Sick almost to death, I sit up startled, as a dark wind blows rain in at the cold window.

殘燈無焰影幢幢，此夕聞君謫九江。垂死病中驚坐起，暗風吹雨入寒窗。

"On Hearing That Letian Was Made Marshal of Jiangzhou," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Bai Juyi 白居易

826 · Tang China · On first meeting Liu Yuxi at a banquet in Yangzhou, as he came back from twenty-three years of exile

I raise my eyes and the view is always lonely. A court full of offices, and you alone left to waste your years. I know that talent and a name must be bent for it, but twenty-three years is too much bending.

舉眼風光長寂寞，滿朝官職獨蹉跎。亦知合被才名折，二十三年折太多。

"Drunk, Presented to Prefect Liu the Twenty-Eighth"

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Bai Juyi 白居易

late 830s · Tang China · To his friend Liu Yuxi

The day before yesterday we drank at your house; yesterday, the feast at the Wangs'. Today you stop at my cottage: three meetings in three days. When there is singing, let us sing freely; over the wine, let us urge each other on. Drain a cup for me, and I will make three wishes with you. First, that the world be at peace; second, that our bodies stay strong; third, that here at the end of old age I may see you often.

前日君家飲，昨日王家宴。今日過我廬，三日三會面。當歌聊自放，對酒交相勸。爲我盡一杯，與君發三願。一願世清平，二願身強健。三願臨老頭，數與君相見。

"For Mengde," in the Complete Tang Poems

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Hafez حافظ

14th century · Shiraz, Persia

Plant the tree of friendship, for it bears the fruit your heart desires. Pull up the sapling of enmity, for it bears trouble past counting.

درخت دوستی بنشان که کام دل به بار آرد نهال دشمنی برکن که رنج بی شمار آرد

Divan of Hafez, a ghazal

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Michel de Montaigne

1580s · near Bordeaux, France · Of his friend La Boétie, who had died before him

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

Essays, book 1, "Of Friendship" · in place of the original: the English translation by Charles Cotton (1686, revised by Hazlitt in 1877)

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Zhang Chao 張潮

1690s · Qing China

With a learned friend it is like reading a rare book; with a friend of taste, like reading the poems and prose of a famous hand; with an upright friend, like reading the classics of the sages; with a funny friend, like reading a novel.

對淵博友，如讀異書；對風雅友，如讀名人詩文；對謹飭友，如讀聖賢經傳；對滑稽友，如閱傳奇小說。

Dream Shadows (Youmengying)

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Zhang Zhupo 張竹坡

1690s · Qing China

Spoken by someone good at both reading books and choosing friends.

善於讀書、取友之言。

A comment attached to this passage in Dream Shadows

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Mary Shelley

1818 · London, England · Written as a letter from the explorer Walton to his sister, as he sets out for the Arctic

You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.

Frankenstein, the second letter

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Henry David Thoreau

1854 · Massachusetts, USA

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Walden, "Visitors"

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Florence Nightingale

1859 · London, England

A small pet animal is often an excellent companion for the sick, for long chronic cases especially. A pet bird in a cage is sometimes the only pleasure of an invalid confined for years to the same room.

Notes on Nursing

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