Love and friendship exclude one another.
—La Bruyère
Friendship is a severe sentiment, solidly seated, since it rests upon all that is highest in us, the purely intellectual part of us. What happiness to be able to say all that one feels to someone who comprehends one to the very end and not only up to a certain point, to someone who completes one’s thought with the same word that was on one’s lips, someone the reply of whom starts from one a torrent of conceptions, a flood of ideas!
—Pierre Loti
The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
How he esteems your merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
—Cowper
Judge before friendship, then confide till death.
—Young
Have no friend not equal to yourself.
—Confucius
Separate thyself from thine enemies, and take heed of thy friends. A faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath found such an one hath found a treasure. Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend, and his excellency is invaluable. A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear the Lord shall find him.