'Tis great Confidence in a Friend to tell him your Faults, greater to tell him his.
Birthday Quotes
Birthday quotes here lean towards reflection rather than celebration. The page is built from the pages on age, time, friendship and happiness, and Shakespeare has the most entries, then Byron, Edward Young and Longfellow.
That is useful if you want something thoughtful for a milestone birthday and less so for a card with balloons on it. The funny ones are on the Funny page. A warning on the friendship quotes: “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” is not from Sun Tzu, and “Time flies like an arrow” was not said by Groucho Marx. Both are flagged here.
Most quoted on birthday:
True friendship is an identity of souls rarely to be found in this world.
What ill-starr'd rage
Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age?
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of ev'ry friend—and ev'ry foe.
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Do I not most effectually destroy my enemies, in making them my friends?
I have lost friends, some by death [...] others through sheer inability to cross the street.
For friendship, of itself a holy tie,
Is made more sacred by adversity.
Some friendships are made by nature, some by contract, some by interest, and some by souls.
Happiness was simply something that occurred in a well-regulated life.
How vainly seek
The selfish for that happiness denied
To aught but virtue!
Hold him alone truly fortunate who has ended his life in happy well-being.