Friendship craves
The commerce of the mind, not the exchange
Of emulous feasts that foster sycophants.
Friendship Quotes
“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” is credited to Sun Tzu, and sometimes to Machiavelli or Petrarch. Wikiquote traces the wording most directly to a line spoken by Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II. It is flagged here as misattributed.
“Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies” is flagged too. It is credited to Voltaire, and to the Maréchal de Villars. One French source puts the words in the mouth of Gourville, a man writing as an exile.
For the sourced quotes, try Sydney Smith: “Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence” (from his memoir, 1855). Or Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), where old friends are always best, “’less you can catch a new one that’s fit to make an old one out of.”
Levin wanted friendship and got friendliness; he wanted steak and they offered spam.
As two floating planks meet and part on the sea,
O friend! so I met and then drifted from thee.
Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.
I don't have many friends, so I try and be there for the ones that do make it that far.
The disciple whom Jesus loved leaned on His bosom. Dear friend, where are you?
Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.