The Golden Link of Friendship Part 8

Profession of Friends.h.i.+p

Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of friends.h.i.+p.

_Longfellow_

It is good discretion not to make too much of any man at first, because one cannot hold out that proportion.

_Bacon_

The man that hails you Tom or Jack, And proves by thumps upon your back How he esteems your merit, Is such a friend that one had need Be very much his friend indeed To pardon or to bear it.

_Cowper_

I have not from your eyes that gentleness, And show of love, as I was wont to have; You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand, Over your friend that loves you.

_Shakespeare_

When an enemy has tried every expedient in vain, he will pretend friends.h.i.+p, and then, by this pretext, execute designs which no enemy could have effected.

_Saadi_

Worldly friends.h.i.+p is profuse in honeyed words, pa.s.sionate endearments, commendations of beauty, while true friends.h.i.+p speaks a simple honest language.

_Francis de Sales_

Ceremony and great professing renders friends.h.i.+p as much suspected as it does religion.

_Wycherley_

I am weary Of the bewildering masquerade of Life, Where strangers walk as friends and friends as strangers; Where whispers overheard betray false hearts; And through the mazes of the crowd we chase Some form of loveliness, that smiles, and beckons, And cheats us with fair words, only to leave us A mockery and a jest; maddened, confused,-- Not knowing friend from foe.

_Longfellow_

Test of Friends.h.i.+p

A friend should be like money--tried before being required, not found faulty in our need.

_Plutarch_

He is our friend who loves more than admires us, and would aid us in our great work.

_William Ellery Channing_

Know this, that he that is a friend to himself, is a friend to all men.

_Seneca_

A friend is he who sets his heart upon us, is happy with us, and delights in us; does for us what we want, is willing and fully engaged to do all he can for us, on whom we can rely in all cases.

_William Ellery Channing_

To act the part of a true friend requires more conscientious feeling than to fill with credit and complacency any other station or capacity in social life.

_Mrs Ellis_

There are no rules for friends.h.i.+p. It must be left to itself; we cannot force it any more than love.

_Hazlitt_

If thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him. For some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of trouble.

_Ecclesiasticus_

When I see leaves drop from their trees in the beginning of autumn, just such, think I, is the friends.h.i.+p of the world. Whilst the sap of maintenance lasts, my friends swarm in abundance; but in the winter of my need they leave me naked. He is a happy man that hath a true friend at his need; but he is more truly happy that hath no need of his friend.

_Warwick_

As the yellow gold is tried in the fire, so the faith of friends.h.i.+p must be seen in adversity.

_Ovid_

True friends.h.i.+p, like a star, is made brilliant by the dark night.

_Anon_

Proof of Friends.h.i.+p

That friends.h.i.+p only is genuine when two friends, without speaking a word to each other, can, nevertheless, find happiness in being together.

_George Ebers_

Promises may get friends, but it is performance that must nurse and keep them.

_Owen Felltham_

He is a friend who, in dubious circ.u.mstances, aids in deeds when deeds are necessary.

_Plautus_