The quote database

The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; but, looking back, I can discern that, in part, we loved the thing he was, for some shadow of what he was to be.

By this practice he may obtain the solitude of adversity without its melancholy, its instructions without its censures, and its sensibility without its perturbations.

A long life may be passed without finding a friend in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and sincerity.

The longer we live, and the more we think, the higher value we learn to put on the friendship and tenderness of parents and of friends.

Parents we can have but once; and he promises himself too much, who enters life with the expectation of finding many friends.

Many friendships are formed by a community of sensual pleasures: all these will be cut off.

When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground.

This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.

One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings

You can’t change the world alone — you will need some help — and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the good will of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide them.

If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle.

Even in the same family the gap is not so great; the wound closes up sooner than we should expect.

There is then no sympathy, but an uneasy craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way, and in the end probably produces ill-humour.

Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.

It asks a troublesome effort to ensure the admiration of others: it is a still greater one to be satisfied with one's own thoughts.

Most of the friends I have seen have turned out the bitterest enemies, or cold, uncomfortable acquaintance.

Old companions are like meats served up too often, that lose their relish and their wholesomeness.