When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,—no more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you, and delight in you all the time.
—Emerson.
So, if I live or die to serve my friend,
’Tis for my love,—’tis for my friend alone,
And not for any rate that friendship bears
In heaven or on earth.
—George Eliot
Old friends are the only ones whose hold is upon our inmost being; others but half replace them.
—Voltaire
True friends appear less mov’d than counterfeit.
—Horace
It is sublime to feel and say of another, I need never meet, or speak, or write to him; we need not reënforce ourselves, or send tokens of remembrance; I rely on him as on myself; if he did thus and thus, I know it was right.
—Emerson
A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitly to the guidance of their love, and know no other law but kindness.