Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends.
Jacques Delille, Malheur at Pitié (Canto I), 1803
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
Ali ibn Abi Talib, A Hundred Sayings
If you should die before me, ask if you could bring a friend.
Still Remains, a song by Stone Temple Pilots | 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.
Anaïs Nin, Diary entry, March 1937 One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and more symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1932 | Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
Richard Bach, Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.
William Butler Yeats, The Municipal Gallery Re-Visited |