Echoes

A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.

Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose. Besides, few like to be seen as they really are; and a degree of simplicity, and of undisguised confidence, which, to uninterested observers, would almost border on weakness, is the charm, nay the essence of love or friendship, all the bewitching graces of childhood again appearing.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

Character is the virtue of hard times.

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.

Plato is my friend — Aristotle is my friend — but truth is a greater friend.

It is difficulties that show what men are.

Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.

When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.

There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.

He who loses his money is forsaken by his friends, his wife, his servants, and his relations; yet when he regains his riches those who have forsaken him come back to him. Hence wealth is certainly the best of relations.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

He was that child's stay, and she was his prop. Thanks to him, she could walk through life; thanks to her, he could continue in virtue.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

He who does not trust enough will not be trusted.

Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath. For occasions do not make a man frail, but they show what he is.

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few.

Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.