It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.

Epicurus (341 BC–270 BC), Greek philosopher.

It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), U.S. novelist and folklorist.

Of all the heavenly gifts that mortal men commend,
What trusty treasure in the world can countervail a friend?

Nicholas Grimald (1519–1562), English poet.

Old friends are generally the refuge of unsociable persons.

Sir Max Beerbohm (1872–1956), British writer and caricaturist.

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 Cather (1873–1947), U.S. novelist, poet, and journalist.

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.

Gloria Naylor (1950–), U.S. novelist, producer, and playwright.

There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873), British novelist and politician.

There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for Hope, and there is nothing he wouldn't do for me...We spend our lives doing nothing for each other.

Bing Crosby (1904–1977), U.S. singer and actor.

Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.

W. B. Yeats (1865–1939), Irish poet and playwright, 1937.

We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.

Attributed to: Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966), British novelist.

A good friend is my nearest relation.

Anonymous

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.

Oliver Goldsmith (1730–1774), Irish-born British novelist, playwright, and poet.

Friendship is Love without his wings!

Lord Byron (1788–1824), English poet.

Love comes from blindness, friendship from knowledge.

Bussy-Rabutin (1618–1693), French soldier and writer.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944), French writer and aviator.

I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

E. M. Forster (1879–1970), British novelist.

People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.

Bob Merrill (1921–1977), U.S. lyricist and composer.

If she was a victim of any kind, she was a victim of her friends.

George Cukor (1899–1983), U.S. film director.

I could not see my little friend, because he was not there!
But when the Crier cried, "O Yes!" the people cried, "O No!"

Richard Harris Barham (1788–1845), British cleric and humorist, 1840-1847.

Books and friends should be few but good.

Distance promotes close friendship.

In hardship you know your friends.

Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.

When you are rich, relation exists; when you are poor, relations desist.

The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

Leo Robin (1900–1984), U.S. songwriter, 1949.

Intimacies between women often go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending in small talk without loss of esteem.

Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973), Irish novelist and short-story writer.

In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.

It is impossible to love and be wise.

It is very rarely that a man loves and when he does it is nearly always fatal.

Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978), Scottish poet and writer.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), British lexicographer and writer.

Love makes time pass. Time makes love pass.

Love's pleasure lasts but a moment; love's sorrow lasts all through life.

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794), French playwright and novelist.

Love, in the form in which it exists in society, is nothing but the exchange of two fantasies and the superficial contact of two bodies.

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794), French writer.

Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it.

Attributed to: Maurice Chevalier (1888–1972), French singer and actor, 1955.

Never love with all your heart, it only ends in aching.

Countee Cullen (1903–1946), U.S. poet, novelist, and playwright.