Friendship
Reflections on the beauty of companionship.
"What do you most value in your friends?Their continued existence."
"We know from daily life that we exist for other people first of all, for whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends."
"When a woman becomes her own best friend life is easier."
"If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do."
"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
"Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment."
"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."
"No matter how bad you want a person, if your hearts are in two different places, you’ll have to pass and move on."
"What is a friend if not someone you feel close to, someone you like being with, someone you can confide in and share pleasure with.-Jeremy Malory-"
"She had to go on this quest. The fate of the world might depend on it. But part of him wanted to say: Forget the world. He didn’t want to be without her."
"Quizás aun no te comprenda. Pero, con un poco de tiempo, llegaré a entenderte. Y no habrá nadie en el mundo que te comprenda mejor que yo."
"If you claim to be a real friend then be real in your soul. If you claim to be fake then be an enemy instead."
"True friends will always push you towards the great possibilities of your future, false friends will always chain you to the mistakes in your past."
"Nothing of real worth can ever be bought. Love, friendship, honour, valour, respect. All these things have to be earned."
"The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair."
"Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend. The rest of us know that though we can have erotic love and friendship for the same person yet in some ways nothing is less like a Friendship than a love-affair. Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is necessarily between two only. But two, far from being the necessary number for Friendship, is not even the best. And the reason for this is important.... In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets... Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, 'Here comes one who will augment our loves.' For in this love 'to divide is not to take away."
"Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one." ... It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision - it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude."
"Soul connections are not often found and are worth every bit of fight left in you to keep."
"Nothing is more curious and awkward than the relationship of two people who only know each other with their eyes — who meet and observe each other daily, even hourly and who keep up the impression of disinterest either because of morals or because of a mental abnormality. Between them there is listlessness and pent-up curiosity, the hysteria of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need for communion and also a kind of tense respect. Because man loves and honors man as long as he is not able to judge him, and desire is a product of lacking knowledge."
"Soulmate" is an overused term, but a true soul connection is very rare, and very real."
"And he knew that at that moment, they understood each other perfectly, and when he told her what he was going to do now, she would not say ‘be careful’ or ‘don’t do it’, but she would accept his decision because she would not have expected anything less of him."
"He experienced the singular pleasure of watching people he loved fall in love with other people he loved."