A Heartfelt Collection of Inspirational Quotes for Friendship

"A friend is a gift you give yourself."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"A true friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else."

- Len Wein

"One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"If you have one true friend you have more than your share."

- Thomas Fuller

"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed."

- Khalil Gibran

"I think if I've learned anything about friendship, it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you."

- Jon Katz

"A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself."

- Jim Morrison

"A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably."

- William Penn

"There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies."

- Aristotle

"Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything."

- Muhammad Ali

"Friends and good manners will carry you where money won't go."

- Margaret Walker

"Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief."

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

"A friend to all is a friend to none."

- Aristotle

"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares."

- Henri Nouwen

"Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer."

- Jean de la Fontaine

"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."

- Alice Walker

"You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together."

- Nicholas Sparks

"It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter."

- Marlene Dietrich

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything."

- Muhammad Ali

"The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart."

- Elisabeth Foley

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."

- Walter Winchell

"Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that."

- Ally Condie

"A friend is one of the best things you can be and the greatest things you can have."

- Sarah Valdez

"When the world is so complicated, the simple gift of friendship is within all of our hands."

- Maria Shriver

"A single rose can be my garden…a single friend, my world."

- Leo Buscaglia

"Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together."

- Woodrow Wilson

"Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer."

- Ed Cunningham

"Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget."

- G. Randolf

"A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have."

- Irish Proverb

"True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart."

- Helen Keller

"There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship."

- Thomas Aquinas

"Friends are the family you choose."

- Jess C. Scott

"The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing…not healing, not curing…that is a friend who cares."

- Henri Nouwen

"A friend can tell you things you don’t want to tell yourself."

- Frances Ward Weller

"Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."

- Albert Camus

"Friends…they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams."

- Henry David Thoreau

"My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me."

- Henry Ford

"If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together…there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think but the most important thing is, even if we’re apart… I’ll always be with you."

- Winnie the Pooh

"In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."

- Albert Schweitzer

"There are friendships imprinted in our hearts that will never be diminished by time and distance."

- Dodinsky

"If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever."

- Winnie the Pooh

"Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends."

- Virginia Woolf

"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing."

- Elie Wiesel

"Friends are the family we choose for ourselves."

- Edna Buchanan

"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."

- Elbert Hubbard

"Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything."

- Muhammad Ali

"The most important discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart."

- Elisabeth Foley

"Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled."

- Ally Condie

"Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life—and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next."

- Dean Koontz

"A true friend is for ever a friend."

- George MacDonald

"And what is a friend? More than a father, more than a brother: a traveling companion, with him, you can conquer the impossible, even if you must lose it later. Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing."

- Elie Wiesel

"Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by, the doubling of our joy, and diving of our grief;"

- Joseph Addison

"That was what a best friend did: hold up a mirror and show you your heart."

- Kristin Hannah

"If you live to be a 100, I want to live to be 100 minus one day so I never have to live without you."

- Winnie the Pooh

"A good friend is a connection to life — a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world."

- Lois Wyse

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature."

- Jane Austen

"Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world."

- John Evelyn

"A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same."

- Elbert Hubbard

"Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends leave footprints in your heart."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"When twilight drops her curtain down and pins it with a star, remember that you have a friend though she may wander far."

- L. M. Montgomery

"A friend is a gift, a blessing, a reason to be grateful to God."

- Jake Gahr

"They knew they’d be friends forever. And so it was."

- Cheryl Hawkinson

"Friends come and go, but the really good ones sit and stay."

- Tina Neidlein

"There are three things that grow more precious with age; old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to enjoy."

- Henry Ford

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Someone who sticks by you, helps guide you and always sees the good in you…that’s the kind of friend you hold on to forever."

- Carolina Fernandez

"The best friends are 'to the end' friends."

- Jake Gahr

"Time doesn't take away from friendship, nor does separation."

- Tennessee Williams

"Remember that life's most valuable antiques are dear old friends."

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family."

- Mario Puzo

"One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about."

- Mindy Kaling

"Through the ups, the downs and the sideways, life is always better with friends."

- Mercedes Lucero

"You don't have to have anything in common with people you've known since you were five. With old friends, you've got your whole life in common."

- Lyle Lovett

"How to measure friendship—by hours of listening by decibels of laughter by pounds of problems solved by miles of life walked together."

- Cheryl Hawkinson

"Real friends are the ones you can count on no matter what. The ones who go into the forest to find you and bring you home. And real friends never have to tell you that they’re your friends."

- Morgan Matson

"Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses... swapped back and forth and over again."

- Michelle Obama

"Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years."

- Richard Bach

"Silence makes the real conversations between friends. Not the saying, but the never needing to say that counts."

- Margaret Lee Runbeck

"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked."

- Bernard Meltzer

"A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down."

- Arnold H. Glasgow

"Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief."

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

"Two things you will never have to chase: True friends & true love."

- Mandy Hale

"A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world."

- Lois Wyse

"Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find."

- William Shakespeare

"When you face the world with a friend by your side, your happiness doubles—your troubles divide."

- Cheryl Hawkinson

"The best cure for a bad day is a good friend."

- Bill Gray

"Friends make the good things better and the bad things not so bad simply by being there."

- Renee Daniels

"Friendship isn’t a big thing — it’s a million little things."

- Paulo Coelho

"Friends are angels who love you even at your most un-angelic."

- Carolina Fernandez

"There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature."

- Jane Austen

"Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud."

- Maya Angelou

"A friend is someone you’re connected to across time, space, and bizarre life situations."

- Cheryl Hawkinson

"Nothing can separate true friends. Nice try, geography."

- Carolina Fernandez

"A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside."

- Winnie the Pooh

"The best mirror is an old friend."

- George Herbert

"We grow, we change, but friendship always fits."

- John Peterson

"I don't know what I would have done so many times in my life if I hadn't had my girlfriends. They have literally gotten me up out of bed, taken my clothes off, put me in the shower, dressed me, said, 'Hey, you can do this,' put my high heels on and pushed me out the door!"

- Reese Witherspoon

"If your smile muscles hurt, thank a friend!"

- Chris Brethwaite

"How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live 'em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give 'em."

- Shel Silverstein

"Friendship is a sheltering tree;"

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"When it gets the darkest, you’ll see who your true friends are. They’ll be the ones carrying the light."

- Katherine Stano

"‘Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected."

- Charles Lamb

"If you are ever lucky enough to find a weirdo, never let them go."

- Matthew Gray Gubler

"Never let your best friends get lonely…keep disturbing them."

- Candlelight Publications

"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate."

- Linda Grayson

"My friends and I are crazy. That’s the only thing that keeps us sane."

- Matt Schucker

"'Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected."

- Charles Lamb

"A friend can make you smile even when they’re not around."

- Mike Rokoff

"There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends."

- Sylvia Plath

"Each new friendship can make you a new person, because it opens up new doors inside of you."

- Kate DiCamillo

"Friends are the stars that light up our lives all year round."

- Cheryl Hawkinson

"Whatever words you say, a friend will hear your heart."

- Suzanne Berry

"Here’s to the moments that become great memories with the friends who become family."

- Melissa Woo

"When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you have good friends, no matter how much life is sucking, they can make you laugh."

- P.C. Cast

"Don’t be afraid of new beginnings. Don’t shy away from new people, new energy, new surroundings. Embrace new chances at happiness."

- Billy Chapata

"The thing about strength is that when you’re running a little low, you can tap a friend for a refill."

- Melvina Young

"Be genuinely interested in everyone you meet and everyone you meet will be genuinely interested in you."

- Rasheed Ogunlaru

"Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them."

- Francesco Guicciardini

"True friendship is when two friends can walk in opposite directions, yet remain side by side."

- Josh Grayson

"If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky."

- S.E. Hinton

"What I realize now in hindsight is that there is a natural ebb and flow to friendships. There are times you think there's nothing left between you, that you've hit the bottom, but the special ones survive, find ways of restoring themselves."

- Colette McBeth

"Gratitude is what happens when you’ve got awesome friends."

- Keely Chace

"A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face."

- Maya Angelou

"True friendship is a plant of slow growth…"

- George Washington

"The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Friendship is a forgiving mirror showing us we’re good enough just the way we are."

- Molly Wigand

"Good friends in my life. Grateful feelings in my heart."

- Keely Chace

"No one has had my back, held my hand and hyped me up like my sisters."

- Amy Trowbridge-Yates

"Friendship's the wine of life."

- Edward Young

"My old grandmother always used to say, summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever."

- George R.R. Martin

"Friends give us the blessing of belonging."

- Megan Haave

"If you’re happy and you know it, thank your friends."

- Amy Trowbridge-Yates

"Some friendships just get better with time."

- Jim Howard

"To like and dislike the same things, that is what makes a solid friendship."

- Sallust

"Friendship is a wildly underrated medication."

- Anna Deavere Smith

"A messy house is a must - it separates your true friends from other friends. Real friends are there to visit you not your house!"

- Jennifer Wilson

"Things are never quite as scary when you’ve got a best friend."

- Bill Watterson

"There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature."

- P.G. Wodehouse

"There’s no such thing as boring when you share it with a friend."

- Cheryl Hawkinson

"Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard."

- Walter Dean Myers

"Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare — and precious as a pearl."

- Tahar Ben Jelloun

"For it would then be true friendship, such as no hope, no fear, no self-interest can sever. That is a friendship that stays with people until they die—and that people die for."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth."

- Robert Southey

"There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound."

- Diana Cortes

"Anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you."

- Misty Copeland

"A sweet friendship refreshes the soul."

- Proverbs 27:9

"The essence of true friendship is to make allowance for another’s little lapses."

- David Storey

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'"

- C.S. Lewis

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched — they must be felt with the heart."

- Helen Keller

"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."

- Albus Dumbledore

"The best friends to have are the ones who make every long road feel shorter and every adventure even bigger."

- Keely Chace

"I always say, Lorelei Lee got it wrong in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It's not that diamonds are a girl's best friend, but it's your best friends who are your diamonds. It's your best friends who are supremely resilient, made under pressure, and of astonishing value. They're everlasting; they can cut glass if they need to."

- Gina Barreca

"The only way to have a friend is to be one."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake."

- Aristotle

"Every new friend is a new adventure… the start of more memories."

- Patrick Lindsay

"The great thing about new friends is that they bring new energy to your soul."

- Shanna Rodriguez

"The kindest way of helping yourself is to find a friend."

- Ann Kaiser Stearns

"Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation."

- Oscar Wilde

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Getting to know new people and gaining new friends is one of life’s greatest pleasures. So conquer your fears and get out there."

- Tony Clark

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine."

- Thomas Jefferson

"A real friendship should not fade as time passes, and should not weaken because of space separation."

- John Newton

"I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than walk alone in the light."

- Helen Keller

"As long as we share the same sky and breathe the same air, we’re still together."

- Donna Lynn Hope

"A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand."

- Kahlil Gibran

"Can miles truly separate you from friends…If you want to be with someone you love, aren’t you already there?"

- Richard Bach

"[The greatest gift in life] is the gift of friendship, and I have received it; the greatest healing therapy is friendship."

- Hubert Humphrey

"I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light."

- Helen Keller

"It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter."

- Marlene Dietrich

"A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails."

- Donna Roberts

"There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met."

- Jim Henson

"Time doesn’t take away from friendship, nor does separation."

- Tennessee Williams

"Laughter is louder and life feels lighter with good friends."

- Melissa Woo

"Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend."

- Bill Watterson

"To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world."

- Dr. Seuss

"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, for in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed."

- Khalil Gibran

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

- Marcel Proust

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."

- Audrey Hepburn

"Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life."

- Amy Poehler

"Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose."

- Tennessee Williams

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

- Anais Nin

"Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up."

- Thomas J. Watson

"Friends are the siblings God never gave us."

- Mencius

"True friends are like diamonds — bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style."

- Nicole Richie

"Distance means so little, when someone means so much."

- Tom McNeal

"Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity."

- Khalil Gibran

"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

- Carl W. Buechner

"False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports."

- Richard Burton

"Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies."

- Richelle Mead

"Anybody can look at you. It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see."

- John Green

"Life is an ugly, awful place to not have a best friend."

- Sarah Dessen

"Everyone you meet knows something you don’t know but need to know. Learn from them."

- C.G. Jung

"A friend who understands your tears is much more valuable than a lot of friends who only know your smile."

"True friends aren’t the ones who make your problems disappear. They are the ones who won’t disappear when you’re facing problems."

"When it hurts to look back and you’re afraid to look ahead, you can look beside you and your best friend will be there."

"That’s when I realized what a true friend was. Someone who would always love you — the imperfect you, the confused you, the wrong you — because that is what people are supposed to do."

"A best friend is someone who makes you laugh even when you think you’ll never smile again."

"A best friend is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have."

- Unknown

"Whatever we step in, fall off of or trip over…friendship always gives us a soft place to land."

"God couldn’t hand out hugs all the time, so he created friends."

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand."

"Best friends understand when you say, ‘forget it.’ Wait forever when you say, ‘just a minute.’ Stay when you say, ‘leave me alone.’ And open the door before you can say, ‘come in.’"

"Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don’t say."

"Best friends are the people in your life who make you laugh louder, smile brighter and live better."

"A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden."

"It’s not what we have in life, but who we have in our life that matters."

"Sometimes being with your best friend is all the therapy you need."

"No friendship is an accident."

"A strong friendship doesn’t need daily conversation or being together. As long as the relationship lives in the heart, true friends never part."

"Everyone has a friend during each stage of life. But only lucky ones have the same friend in all stages of life."

"Life was meant for good friends and great adventures."

"True friendship is when you walk into their house and your WiFi connects automatically."

"Good friends are like stars. You don't always see them, but you know they're always there."

"True friends are great riches."

"By chance we met, by choice we become friends."

"One good friendship will outlive forty average loves."

"Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there."

- Unknown

"There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met."

"We’ll be best friends forever because you already know too much."

"God made us best friends because he knew our moms couldn’t handle us as sisters."

"Best friends. Because if anyone else heard our conversations we’d end up in the mental hospital."

"True friends are always together in spirit."

"We weren’t sisters [or brothers] by birth, but we knew from the start…fate brought us together to be sisters [or brothers] by heart."

"Best friends don’t care if your house is clean. They care if you have wine."

"Best friend: the one that you can be mad at only for a short period of time because you have important stuff to tell them."

"Friendship is so weird…you just pick a human you’ve met and you’re like ‘Yep, I like this one’ and you just do stuff with them."

"It’s hard to find a friend who’s cute, loving, generous, caring, and smart. My advice to y’all is, don’t lose me."

"I think we’ll be friends forever because we’re too lazy to find new friends."

"Friends buy you food. Best friends eat your food."

"You don’t have to be crazy to be my friend. I’ll train you."

"I love that our effortless friendship fits perfectly with my laziness."

"We’ll be the old ladies causing trouble in the nursing home."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me. I believe you."

"You are worthy and deserving of everything good the world has to offer."

"You are never “less than.” You are more than. More than the wildest dreams I ever had for a good friend, a partner, a parent."

"Best friends share laughs, memories and inside jokes. They will always be honest and stand by your side no matter what. They wipe your tears, pick you up when you fall, and are forever a piece of your heart."

"You’ve survived 100% of your worst days so far. You’re a champion."

"You are worthy of asking for and receiving help — this is not your burden to bear alone."

"A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are."

"A strong friendship doesn’t need daily conversation, doesn’t always need togetherness, as long as the relationship lives in the heart, true friends will never part."

"A part of you has grown in me, together forever we shall be, never apart, maybe in distance, but not in heart."