Henry David Thoreau Quotes on Friendship (23 Quotes)

Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love and in proportion to our truthfulness and confidence in one another, our lives are divine and miraculous, and answer to our ideal.... Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have been changed into a pine at last No no it is the poet he it is who makes the truest use of the pine-who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane....

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

Friendship is never established as an understood relation. It is a miracle which requires constant proofs. It is an exercise of the purest imagination and of the rarest faith.

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

Enemies publish themselves. They declare war. The friend never declares his love.

A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us. The friend asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to each other's dreams.

If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again, - if you have paid your debts and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

I have never found a companion so companionable as solitude.

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.

Friends ... They are kind to each other's hopes. They cherish each other's dreams.

Four things to think about. 1. Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. 2. Let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred. 3. Keep three chairs in your house. One for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. 4. To preserve your relationship to nature, make your life more moral, more pure, more innocent.

How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.