Ralph Waldo Emerson on Friendship
1803–1882 United States
← All quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
11 quotes
The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
Society and Solitude (1870)
The only way to have a good friend is to be one.
Essays (1841)
The highest compact we can make with our fellow, is, — "Let there be truth between us two forevermore".
There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never mutual respect, until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole world.
I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances.
The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.
Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor, busy men can usually command.
A day for toil, an hour for sport,
But for a friend is life too short.
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
The wise man … needs no bribe or feast or palace to draw friends to him. He is supremely fair. He angles with himself and with no other bait.
Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed. They stand on the brink of the ocean of thought and power, but they never take a single step that would bring them there.
Essays (1841)