Tao Te Ching
Friendship
Interested more in creating and nourishing than academically defining, Aristotle took a practical approach to discussing friendship and described three main kinds. The first, based on the utility of accomplishing goals (business partners, classmates, colleagues) only lasts as long and the benefits remain. The second form, based on pleasure includes people we have fun with enjoying mutual interests but quickly ends when tastes or values change. He depicts the highest and most rare form of friendship as standing on the deep sense of virtue that—far above pleasure and utility—values goodness, appreciates others as they are in themselves rather than only valuing the personal benefit, and—seeing through the cultural facades—respects the true and authentic qualities of the person as they really are. This last requires time, patience, and awareness but earns longevity, brings joy, and in Aristotle’s estimation gathers the possibility of friends becoming "as one soul in two bodies."
Quotes (97)
“When two people are at one in their inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze.”
“Birds of a feather will flock together. Wise men will judge us by the company we keep.”
“An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.”
“I do not want a friend who smiles when I smile, who weeps when I weep. My shadow in a pond can do better than that.”
“It is better to fall in with crows than with flatterers; for in the one case you are devoured when dead, in the other case while alive.”
“There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself - an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly.”
“We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.”
“Of all the things that wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is friendship... the chief concerns of the right-minded person are wisdom and friendship of which the former is a mortal benefit, the latter an immortal one.”
“Just as a mirror reflects as a man’s face, his choice of friends reflects his character. Always be careful in forming friendships because one’s friends become a visible extension of our inner inclinations and tendencies.”
“A friend after one's own heart is hard to find. If you have such a friend, what more can be lacking?”
“It is impossible to live pleasurably without living prudently, justly and honorably; without making friends and without being philanthropic.”
“Virtue is the parent and preserver of friendship. Without virtue, friendship cannot exist at all.”
“Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.”
“I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.”
“There are three types of friends: those like food without which you can't live; those like medicine which you need occasionally; and those like an illness which you never want.”
“No friend is better than your own wise heart [...] no one should be closer to you than your own consciousness.”
“Why keep an undependable friend? Rainbows have beautiful colors but only a fool would depend on rainbow clothes.”
“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship… Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.”
“Looking back on months and years of intimacy, to feel that your friend, while you still remember the moving words you exchanged, is yet growing distant and living in a world apart—all this is sadder far than partings brought by death.”
“It is not easy to stop thinking ill of others. Usually one must enter into a friendship with a person who has accomplished that great feat himself Then something might start to rub off on you of that true elegance.”
“If you are alone, you are all your own; with a companion you are half yourself.”
“The first opinion one forms of someone and of his understanding, is by seeing those he has around him.”
“I am always alone and speak to no one... I have no friend of any kind and I do not want any.”
“The sage should be self-sufficient, his own universal friend depending on himself alone.”
“We’re judged by our friends, the insight of a true friend is invaluable, and yet most don’t pay attention. Choosing good friends is one of the most important things in life. Therefore choose them by choice, not by chance.”
“Friendship multiplies the good life, divides the evil, guards against misfortune, and brings fresh air to the soul.”
“that is a miserable arithmetic which could estimate friendship as nothing, or at less than nothing.”
“It's useless to complain about your enemies; if your whole being is a standing reproach to them, they can never become your friends.”
“Those who laugh together become like the waves of the sea… They are no more separate than are two waves.”
“Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?… we’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.
We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine; But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.”
“Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.”
“With compassion, even enemies turn into friends. Without compassion, even friends turn into enemies.”
“Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.”
“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
“Consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship.”
“Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.”
“I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.”
“Friends are a costly luxury, and when one invests one's capital in a mission in life, one cannot afford to have friends.”
“You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can't forget. Those are your 'friends.'”
“Life is short, even for those who live a long time, and we must live for the few who know and appreciate us, who judge and absolve us, and for whom we have the same affection and indulgence. The rest I look upon as a mere crowd”
“Are you a slave? Then you cannot be a friend. Are you a tyrant? Then you cannot have friends.”
“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.”
“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
“We choose not randomly each other. We meet only those who already exists in our subconscious.”
“Friendship is in the end no more than a lie which seeks to make us believe that we are not irremediably alone”
“I found myself thinking of the places and people of my own infinitesimal past... whenever my consciousness was quickened, all those early friends were quickened within it, and in some strange way they accompany me through all my new experiences.”
“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction both are transformed.”
“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.”
“Disease served as your great enemy and also your greatest friend, the only one that stayed loyal to the death. It never permitted you to relax or remain where you were, never allowed you to declare: I am fine here, I shall go no further.”
“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.”
“The rich have butlers and no friends, and we have friends and no butlers.”
“Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone.”
“Anyone who wishes to learn to enjoy life must find friends of the same type of temperament, and take as much trouble to gain and keep their friendship as wives take to keep their husbands.”
“Over time you learn that real friends are few and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later, will find himself surrounded only with false friendships.”
“Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more.”
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
“Friendship to a large extent, indeed, consists of this kind of talking about something that the friends have in common. By talking about what is between them, it becomes ever more common to them. It gains not only its specific articulateness, but develops and expands and finally, in the course of time and life, begins to constitute a little world of its own which is shared in friendship.”
“Like how a crystal takes on the color of cloth underneath it, the people we spend time with make a huge difference in the direction our life takes.”
“Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
“I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot... What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.”
“I liked all the people. I just didn’t like their lifestyle. And I was against the drugs.”
“We discover that all human beings are just like us, so we are able to relate to them more easily. That generates a spirit of friendship in which there is less need to hide what we feel or what we are doing.”
“There are two types of friends—those who buy and appreciate your habitual patterns and your true friends that don't buy into and support those same patterns.”
“True friends are like stars; you can only recognize them when it's dark around you.”
“The best friends are the ones who see each other least clearly… Friends engage in mutual inflation. Being a person’s true friend means endorsing the untruths he hold dearest… Self-love becomes a mutual admiration society.”
“We should always have three friends in our lives-one who walks ahead who we look up to and follow; one who walks beside us, who is with us every step of our journey; and then, one who we reach back for and bring along after we’ve cleared the way.”
“the level of insincerity apparently required in every friendship... a project to secure affection, and a project to express ourselves honestly... the pursuit of affection and the pursuit of truth are fundamentally rather than occasionally incompatible”
“There is a reason we're not friends with everyone we meet. We're friends with people who see the world the way we see it, who share our view and our belif set.”
“Invite death. Serve tea and make friends with it. Then you won't have anything to worry about.”
“with friends we learn to enjoy what we like and not look for faults. It does not mean there is no awareness of shortcomings... We do not reject them simply because we notice a blemish. We put their faults in context because we keep most prominently in mind all that we have found to admire and enjoy in them.”
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