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Friendship ... receives its real sustenance from an equality that, to proceed without a limp, must have its two limbs equal.

— Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

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Friendship

More quotes by Étienne de La Boétie

Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The good seed that nature plants in us is so slight and so slippery that it cannot withstand the least harm from wrong nourishment.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

Friendship ... flourishes not so much by kindnesses as by sincerity.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The mob has always behaved in this way—eagerly open to bribes that cannot be honorably accepted, and dissolutely callous to degradation and insult that cannot be honorably endured.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment is the greatest wealth, a trusted friend is the best relative, Nibbana is the greatest bliss.

Gautama Buddha

Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.

Sanu Sharma

Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
Oh the joys that came down shower-like,
Of friendship, love, and liberty,
Ere I was old!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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 entries (1914)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Étienne de La Boétie (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.