“Now friendship may be thus defined: a complete accord on all subjects human and divine, joined with mutual goodwill and affection.”
Cicero, 1900 · Roman statesman and philosopher, 106 to 43 BC
Chapter 5
On Friendship
“You might just as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life; for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful.”
Cicero, 1900 · Roman statesman and philosopher, 106 to 43 BC
“Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth.”
Ecclesiastes, 1611 · Hebrew wisdom literature, King James Version
“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
Book of Proverbs, 1611 · Hebrew wisdom literature, King James Version
“There are three friendships which are advantageous. Friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere; and friendship with the man of much observation.”
Confucius, 1861 · Chinese teacher and philosopher, 551 to 479 BC
“Peace is the father of friendship.”
Yoruba proverb, 1865 · West African proverb recorded in the nineteenth century
“Hold a true friend with both thy hands.”
Kanuri proverb, 1865 · proverb of Bornu, in what is now northeastern Nigeria
“Friendship from ruin saves, in way of virtue keeps; in troublous time, it weeps with him who weeps.”
Tiruvalluvar, 1886 · Tamil poet and moralist, about the first century BC
“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.”
Michel de Montaigne, 1580 · French essayist, 1533 to 1592, on his friend Etienne de La Boetie
“I can show you a philtre, compounded without drugs, herbs, or any witch's incantation: if you would be loved, love.”
Hecato of Rhodes, 1917 · Stoic philosopher, quoted by Seneca in his letters to Lucilius
“For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.”
Kahlil Gibran, 1923 · Lebanese American poet and painter, 1883 to 1931
Friendship is built out of hours. It takes roughly fifty hours together to move from acquaintance to casual friend, about ninety to become a friend, and more than two hundred to become a close one.
Jeffrey Hall, 2019 · research finding, University of Kansas, on the time cost of friendship
Across 148 studies and more than 300,000 people, those with strong social ties had a fifty percent greater likelihood of surviving the study period than those without. Company is a survival factor.
Julianne Holt-Lunstad and colleagues, 2010 · meta-analytic research finding on social relationships and mortality
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