Profession of Friendship

Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of friendship.

_Longfellow_

It is good discretion not to make too much of any man at first, because one cannot hold out that proportion.

_Bacon_

The man that hails you Tom or Jack, And proves by thumps upon your back How he esteems your merit, Is such a friend that one had need Be very much his friend indeed To pardon or to bear it.

_Cowper_

I have not from your eyes that gentleness, And show of love, as I was wont to have; You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand, Over your friend that loves you.

_Shakespeare_

When an enemy has tried every expedient in vain, he will pretend friendship, and then, by this pretext, execute designs which no enemy could have effected.

_Saadi_

Worldly friendship is profuse in honeyed words, pa.s.sionate endearments, commendations of beauty, while true friendship speaks a simple honest language.

_Francis de Sales_

Ceremony and great professing renders friendship as much suspected as it does religion.

_Wycherley_

I am weary Of the bewildering masquerade of Life, Where strangers walk as friends and friends as strangers; Where whispers overheard betray false hearts; And through the mazes of the crowd we chase Some form of loveliness, that smiles, and beckons, And cheats us with fair words, only to leave us A mockery and a jest; maddened, confused,-- Not knowing friend from foe.

_Longfellow_

Test of Friendship

A friend should be like money--tried before being required, not found faulty in our need.

_Plutarch_

He is our friend who loves more than admires us, and would aid us in our great work.

_William Ellery Channing_

Know this, that he that is a friend to himself, is a friend to all men.

_Seneca_

A friend is he who sets his heart upon us, is happy with us, and delights in us; does for us what we want, is willing and fully engaged to do all he can for us, on whom we can rely in all cases.

_William Ellery Channing_

To act the part of a true friend requires more conscientious feeling than to fill with credit and complacency any other station or capacity in social life.

_Mrs Ellis_

There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself; we cannot force it any more than love.

_Hazlitt_

If thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him. For some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of trouble.

_Ecclesiasticus_

When I see leaves drop from their trees in the beginning of autumn, just such, think I, is the friendship of the world. Whilst the sap of maintenance lasts, my friends swarm in abundance; but in the winter of my need they leave me naked. He is a happy man that hath a true friend at his need; but he is more truly happy that hath no need of his friend.

_Warwick_

As the yellow gold is tried in the fire, so the faith of friendship must be seen in adversity.

_Ovid_

True friendship, like a star, is made brilliant by the dark night.

_Anon_

Proof of Friendship

That friendship only is genuine when two friends, without speaking a word to each other, can, nevertheless, find happiness in being together.

_George Ebers_

Promises may get friends, but it is performance that must nurse and keep them.

_Owen Felltham_

He is a friend who, in dubious circ.u.mstances, aids in deeds when deeds are necessary.

_Plautus_