Friends Are The Only Family You Get To Pick Out, So No Wonder Many Great Minds Have Weighed In On The Subject Over The Years. These Sayings About Friendship From 10 Great Writers Are But The Tip Of The Iceberg.
Throughout life, you will meet many people. Some will be pleasant. Some will be jerks. And some will fall in between the two extremes. But no matter how nice a person is, it takes something more to make a friend. Friendship doesn’t come easy — at least, it shouldn’t. Friends are forged through good times and bad, through success and adversity. In other words, be careful when picking out your friends, and listen to the advice from these men and women.
My friend is one who takes me for what I am.
–Henry David Thoreau, author of “Walden”
Life’s struggles won’t always be easy to endure, but the energy you expend on friendship should be helping each other through the tough times, not in reshaping who you are as a person to suit someone else. If you’re working too hard at being liked, you are neither being a friend to the person you’re working for, nor gaining a friend should they like you in return. Translation: Listen to the Walden writer, and just be yourself.
A friend is a present you give yourself.
–Robert Louis Stevenson, author of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”
The older you get, and the more responsibilities you have, the less you’re able to spend on yourself. That’s just a hard fact of life, at least for 99 percent of us. That’s why there is nothing more enjoyable than an impromptu spending spree whenever you’re lucky enough to fall in to any money. But nothing you can buy in a store will ever compare to the gift that Stevenson is talking about here, and that gift is basically picking out the person, who will never judge you and will always be there for you no matter what the day holds.
A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
–Walter Winchell, American newspaper columnist
At some point in your life, your foot will get stuck in your mouth or you’ll do something so embarrassing or horrible — at least in your eyes — that it will seem like you can never recover from it. When those moments arise, who are the people that are still there to lift you up and get you through it? Your answer to that question is/are your friend(s).
Hold a true friend with both your hands.
–Friedrich Nietzsche, author of “Der Antichrist”
Handshakes are fleeting little pleasantries that we all show to one another when we first meet or simply to be polite. Think about a time in life when you were engaged in a fierce sporting competition. Win or lose, you walked across the line at the end and shook a solitary hand with someone you would most likely never see or talk to again. It was just something you did. Friends deserve both hands. They deserve eye contact. They deserve consideration, appreciation, and respect.
Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.
–Tennessee Williams, author of “A Streetcar Named Desire”
Who better to weigh in on matters of friendship than one of the greatest playwrights to have lived? And what Williams states here is 100 percent correct. You can only control a small portion of what happens to you in life, but how you respond and how you lead out your life, for better or worse, is built on the backs of your friends.
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
–C.S. Lewis, author of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe “
Of these sayings about friendship, this one is a favorite because it taps in to the childlike innocence and wonder that comes with finding a true friend. Besides, humans are complex, contradictory, irrational beings. Finding someone to be all those things with is one of life’s greatest honors.
Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.
–Oscar Wilde, author of “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
This friendship saying is good because it tries less to define what a friend is and gets down to the nuts and bolts of how two friends can grow their bond and become something more than just really good acquaintances.
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. Look at your three best friends. If they’re ok, then it’s you.
–Rita Mae Brown, author of “Southern Discomfort”
Not too sure how accurate Brown’s statistics are, but this friendship quote is enough to bring a smile to the face, and it does make you think. Even the most introverted of us probably have three friends in our lives that we would consider friends. Chances are, if you think they’re okay and that you must be the crazy one, they’re probably thinking the same about themselves. Truth is, we all go a little crazy sometimes, but good friends will be there to see us through, no matter what.
I have great faith in fools – my friends call it self-confidence.
–Edgar Allan Poe, author of “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Of these sayings about friendship, this one almost didn’t make the cut, but when it fully sunk in, we just had to include it. Poe is doing more than being self-deprecating here. He’s saying that true friends will see your insecurities and will lift you up in spite of them. Couldn’t. Agree. More.
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, author of “Their Eyes Were Watching God”
In other words, life’s more than just a lot of fun when you’re living it with the right people. It will also make you a better person than the one you would have been otherwise. And to the kids, if you really need milk for that morning coffee, don’t milk anything. Just buy it from a store.
That’s it for now. Which of these sayings about friendship rings the most true for you?
