William Shakespeare Quotes on Friendship (88 Quotes)


    And do so, love, yet when they have devised
    What strainèd touches rhetoric can lend,
    Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathized
    In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;
    And their gross painting might be better used
    Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.

    Ay me for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. But, either it was different in blood, Or else it stood upon the choice of friends, Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold' The jaws of darkness do devour it up So quick bright things come to confusion.


    There shall your master have a thousand loves,
    A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
    A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
    A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
    A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
    His humble ambition, proud humility,
    His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
    His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
    Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms
    That blinking Cupid gossips.

    Ceremony was but devised at first to set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, recanting goodness, sorry ere 'Tis shown but where there is true friendship, there needs none.


    For forth he goes and visits all his host;
    Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,
    And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.

    What I believe, I'll wall;
    What know, believe; and what I can redress,
    As I shall find the time to friend, I will.

    Stand up, good Canterbury;
    Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted
    In us, thy friend.

    Stay, my lord, And let your reason with your choler question What 'tis you go about to climb steep hills Requires slow pace at first anger is like A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way, Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England Can advise me like you be to yourself As you would to your friend.

    A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.

    Within this wall of flesh
    There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
    And with advantage means to pay thy love;
    And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
    Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.

    How heavy do I journey on the way,
    When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
    Doth teach that case and that repose to say,
    "Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!


    Good Master
    Fenton,
    I will not be your friend, nor enemy;
    My daughter will I question how she loves you,
    And as I find her, so am I affected;
    Till then, farewell, sir; she must needs go in;
    Her father will be angry.


    Famine is in thy cheeks,
    Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
    Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back:
    The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law;
    The world affords no law to make thee rich;
    Then be not poor, but break it and take this.

    From worthy Edward, King of Albion,
    My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,
    I come, in kindness and unfeigned love,
    First to do greetings to thy royal person,
    And then to crave a league of amity,
    And lastly to confirm that amity
    With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant
    That virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,
    To England's King in lawful marriage.

    I say,
    To buy his favour, I extend this friendship;
    If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;
    And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.


    Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye
    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

    These are the whole contents; and, good my lord,
    By that you love the dearest in this world,
    As you wish Christian peace to souls departed,
    Stand these poor people's friend, and urge the King
    To do me this last right.

    Friends am I with you all and love you all,
    Upon this hope that you shall give me reasons
    Why and wherein Caesar was dangerous.



    Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife,
    With her companion, Grief, must end her life.

    And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportiond thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.

    Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more Or close the wall up with our English dead.

    And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
    Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
    But being both from me both to each friend,
    I guess one angel in another's hell.

    Friends now fast sworn,
    Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart,
    Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise
    Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love,
    Unseparable, shall within this hour,
    On a dissension of a doit, break out
    To bitterest enmity; so fellest foes,
    Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep
    To take the one the other, by some chance,
    Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends
    And interjoin their issues.

    But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,
    Grave witnesses of true experience,
    Cannot induce you to attend my words,
    [To Lucius] Speak, Rome's dear friend, as erst our ancestor,
    When with his solemn tongue he did discourse
    To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear
    The story of that baleful burning night,
    When subtle Greeks surpris'd King Priam's Troy.

    Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it;
    It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.


    Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love.

    Neither a borrower nor a lender be For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,

    Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
    On my black coffin let there be strown;
    Not a friend, not a friend greet
    My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown;
    A thousand thousand to save,
    Lay me, O, where
    Sad true lover never find my grave,
    To weep there!

    Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As mans ingratitude Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho sing, heigh-ho unto the green holly Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Then heigh-ho the holly This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend rememberd not.


    He will do't; for look you, sir, he has as
    many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it were, durst
    not- look you, sir- show themselves, as we term it, his friends,
    whilst he's in directitude.


    More William Shakespeare Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Love - Man - Mind - Kings & Queens - World - Time - Life - God - Friendship - Belief & Faith - Death & Dying - Heaven - War & Peace - Fairness - Fool - Night - Fear - Speaking - Soul - View All William Shakespeare Quotations

    More William Shakespeare Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - A Midsummer Night's Dream
    - As You Like It
    - Julius Caesar
    - King Lear
    - Much Ado About Nothing
    - Othello
    - The Merchant of Venice
    - The Taming of the Shrew
    - Twelfth Night

    Related Authors


    William Shakespeare - Tennessee Williams - Richard Steele - Philippe Quinault - Lady Gregory - Jean Racine - Henry Porter - George S. Kaufman - George Colman - Alexandre Dumas


Page 2 of 2 1 2

Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections