Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is not necessary to write a letter to a friend, and, forthwith, troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words.
—Emerson.
Only he who is unwilling to love without being loved is likely to feel that there is no such thing as friendship in the world.
Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.
—Eliot.
Silence is the ambrosial night in the intercourse of friends, in which their sincerity is recruited and takes deeper root. The language of friends is not words, but meanings. It is an intelligence above language.
—Thoreau.