For Auld Lang Syne | Page 2

friend--and this is happiness supreme.
--Montaigne.

A true friend is more precious to the soul than all which it inherits
beneath the sun.
--Irving.

A friend
Welded into our life is more to us
Than twice
five-thousand kinsmen, one in blood.
--Euripides.

A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fullness
and swelling of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and
induce. No receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you
may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and
whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or
confession.
--Bacon.

Be true to thy friend. Never speak of his faults to another, to show thy
own discrimination; but open them all to him, with candor and true
gentleness; forgive all his errors and his sins, be they ever so many; but
do not excuse the slightest deviation from rectitude. Never forbear to
dissent from a false opinion, or a wrong practice, from mistaken
motives of kindness; nor seek thus to have thy own weaknesses
sustained; for these things cannot be done without injury to the soul.

--Child.

Be admonished not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons,
where no friendship can be.
--Emerson.

A day for toil, an hour for sport,
But for a friend life is too short.
--Emerson.

After a certain age a new friend is a wonder. There is the age of
blossoms and sweet budding green, the age of generous summer, the
autumn when the leaves drop, and then winter shivering and bare.
--Thackeray.

Bitter and unrelenting enemies often deserve better of us than those
friends whom we are inclined to regard as pleasant companions; the
former often tell us the truth, the latter never.
--Cicero.

Does friendship really go on to be more pain than pleasure? I doubt it,
for even in its deepest sorrows there is a joy which makes ordinary
pleasure a very poor, meaningless affair.
--Unknown.

Friendship does not spring up and grow great and become perfect all at

once, but requires time and the nourishment of thoughts.
--Dante.

Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not
sufficient for friendship, for friends do not live in harmony, merely, as
some say, but in melody. We do not wish for friends to feed and clothe
our bodies,--neighbors are kind enough for that,--but to do the like
office to our spirits. For this, few are rich enough, however well
disposed they may be.
--Thoreau.

A pure friendship inspires, cleanses, expands, and strengthens the soul.
--Alger.

A friend is he that loves, and he that is beloved.
--Hobbe.

Change, care, nor Time while life endure
Shall spoil our ancient
friendship sure.
--Lang.

Every young man is the better for cherishing strong friendships with
the wise and good; and he whose soul is knit to one or more chosen
associates with whom he can sympathize in right aims and feelings, is
thereby the better armed against temptation and confirmed in paths of
virtue.

--Carlyle.

Believing hear, what you deserve to hear:
Your birthday, as my own,
to me is dear.
Blest and distinguished days! which we should prize

The first, the kindest, bounty of the skies.
But yours gives most; for
mine did only lend
Me to the world, yours gave to me a friend.
--Martial.

Choose for your friend him that is wise and good, and secret and just,
ingenious and honest, and in those things which have a latitude, use
your own liberty.
--Taylor.

Friendship is made up of esteem and pleasure; pity is composed of
sorrow and contempt: the mind may for some time fluctuate between
them, but it can never entertain both at once.
--Goldsmith.

Friends are much better tried in bad fortune than in good fortune.
--Aristotle.

Fellowship of souls does not consist in the proximity of persons. There
are millions who live in close personal contact--dwell under the same
roof, board at the same table, and work in the same shop--between
whose minds there is scarcely a point of contact, whose souls are as far
asunder as the poles; whilst, contrariwise, there are those separated by
oceans and continents, ay, by the mysterious gulf that divides time

from eternity, between whom there is a constant intercourse, a
delightful fellowship. In truth, we have often more communion with the
distant than the near.
--Dr. Thomas.

Friendship must live by faith and not by sight.
--Eliot.

Friends should not be chosen to flatter. The quality we should prize is
that rectitude which will shrink from no truth. Intimacies, which
increase vanity, destroy friendship.
--Channing.

Favors, and especially pecuniary ones, are generally fatal to friendship;
for our pride will ever prompt us