Friendship

A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view.
~ Wilma Askinas

Just three days ago, Will and I talked about the playoffs, and he was his typical self -- excited about the upcoming games, going through the matchups and, as usual, working angles that nobody else had thought of. That was Will -- passionate about the game and extremely knowledgeable but always looking for something new to add to his wealth of information and deliver it to the public.
~ Bill Belichick, Quoted in The Boston Globe (11 January 2003). Globe's McDonough dies at 67

Friends are very important to me and it's very difficult to make a friendship. I don't take it lightly and I have great respect for it.
~ Bill Bixby, interview with Yvonne-Wyatt Rees, The Incredible Success of Bill Bixby (c. 1980).

Thy Friendship oft has made my heart to ake
Do be my Enemy for Friendships sake.
~ William Blake, Satiric Verses and Epigrams. To H-----

There is nothing final between friends.
~ William Jennings Bryan, from The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan (1925).

Will McDonough's friends were never lonely -- he was there during the bright moments and always on hand during times of adversity. To be Will's friend was to possess a great gift.
~ William M. Bulger, Quoted in The Boston Globe (11 January 2003). Globe's McDonough dies at 67

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, Shadows on the Rock (1931). Book III. The Long Winter

Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness, speak cheering words while their ears can hear, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier by them.
~ William Childs

I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book VI. The Winter Walk At Noon

My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.
~ William Cowper, Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk (1782).

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back,
His sense of your great merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
~ William Cowper, On Friendship

And since I'll have so many friends,
When on my death-bed lying --
I wish my life had more love now,
And less when I am dying.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, Child Lovers and other poems (1916). Friends

Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us. Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy; We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game.
~ William James "Will" Durant

A person or business without friends is insolvent.
~ William Feather

Few things in life are more embarrassing than the necessity of having to inform an old friend that you have just got engaged to his fiancee.
~ W.C. Fields, Big Money (1931)

The wise and intelligent are coming belatedly to realize that alcohol, and not the dog, is man's best friend. Rover is taking a beating -- and he should.
~ W.C. Fields

Caring for but never trying to own may be a further way to define friendship.
~ William Glasser, M.D.

Who hath a better friend than a cat?
~ William Hardwin

I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). On the Pleasure of Hating

It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to a different species.
~ William Hazlitt, in Selected Essays of William Hazlitt (1930). Characteristics (written in 1823)

The youth is better than the old age of friendship.
~ William Hazlitt, in Selected Essays of William Hazlitt (1930). Characteristics (written in 1823)

True friendship is self-love at second hand.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). On the Spirit of Obligations

One thing everybody in the world wants and needs is friendliness.
~ William E. Holler

If I don't have friends, then I ain't got nothing.
~ Billie Holiday

If my friends have alabaster boxes laid away, filled with sympathy and affection which they intend to lay over my dead body, I would rather they bring them now to my weary and troubled heart, and open them that I may be refreshed and cheered by them.
~ (Col.) William C. Hunter, PEP: Poise - Efficiency - Peace; A Book of Hows Not Whys For Physical and Mental Efficiency (1911).

Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendship and intimacies, and soon their places will know them no more, and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to "keep" by force of inertia.
~ William James

We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities; it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.
~ William James

Wherever you are, it is your own friends who make your world.
~ William James

It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930).

[W]e know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
~ W. Somerset Maugham

Friends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own.
~ William Lamb (2nd Viscount, Lord Melbourne), Quoted in The Young Melbourne (1939). Chapter 9

The best way to keep your friends is not to give them away.
~ Wilson Mizner

We're the best of friends
Insisting that the world be turnin' our way.
~ Willie Nelson

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885). The Friend

As yet woman is not capable of friendship. But tell me, ye men, who of you are capable of friendship?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Hold a true friend with both your hands.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

If you have good friends keep them. If you don't have good friends, get them. True friendship, a rare gift, is never taken lightly. Your friends will tell you the truth about yourself, and not charge you $200 an hour. They will tell you the truth but they will stick by you when the rest of the world turns away.
~ Bill O'Reilly

He was one of my best friends. . . . Those are the people you can count on the fingers of one hand.
~ Bill Parcells, Quoted in The Boston Globe (11 January 2003). Globe's McDonough dies at 67

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

Friendship . . . is an Union of Spirits, a Marriage of Hearts, and the Bond thereof Vertue.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693).

We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, -- for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, -- for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man's body were to be divided into two parts, we are all one flesh and blood.
~ William Penn, "Great Treaty" between Penn and the Leni Lenape (Delaware) at the village of Shackamaxon (c. 30 November 1682).

You got to sorter give and take in this old world. We can get mighty rich, but if we haven't got any friends, we will find we are poorer than anybody.
~ Will Rogers

How rare and wonderful is that flash of a moment when we realize we have discovered a friend.
~ William E. Rothschild

Many friendships are swift and accidental, the result of a chance meeting, followed by a permanent separation.
~ William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (1952).

His eyes were fixed and horrible, as one who hails the end;
The frost had set him rigid as a log;
And there, half lying on his breast, his last and only friend,
There crouched and whined a mangy yellow dog.
~ Robert William Service, Ballads of a Cheechako (1909). The Man from Eldorado

I have some friends, some honest friends, and honest friends are few;
My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that's not too new.
~ Robert William Service

A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

A friendly eye could never see such faults.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Act IV, scene iii

Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery.
Words are easy, like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, VI.

For when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep:
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee does bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, VI.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

I am not of that feather to shake off
My friend when he must need me.
~ William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens. Act I, scene i

My friends were poor but honest.
~ William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well. Act I, scene iii

They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.
~ William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene iii

We wanted to put something definitive down for the record, but the conditions were two friends talking one-on-one. It makes it a revealing, honest interchange of feelings and thoughts that no interview would have been capable of doing.
~ William Shatner, in Creative Light Entertainment Released on November 6: MIND MELD: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime (17 September 2001)

The services which cement friendship are reciprocal services. A feeling of dependence is scarcely compatible with friendship.
~ William Henry Smith, Thorndale: Or, The Conflict of Opinions (1857). Book II. Chapter 6. Meeting with a Utopian Philosopher

Something like home that is not home, like alone that is not alone, is to be wished, and only found in a Friend, or in his house.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet

What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under the operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid, becomes wise, active, and resolute, in another's behalf?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero (1847-8). Vol. I, Chapter 23

We are both upon the stage, and must act such parts as are assigned us in this tragedy. Let us do it in a way of honour and without personal animosities.
~ William Waller, Letter to Sir Ralph Hopton (16 June 1643).

A friend is one with whom you are comfortable, to whom you are loyal, through whom you are blessed, and for whom you are grateful.
~ William Arthur Ward

A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.
~ William Arthur Ward

Heck, what's a little extortion among friends?
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

I don't deliberately select my friends because of their background. If I enjoy someone's company, then that's all that counts. I have many different friends who aren't from the same background as me and we get on really well -- it's brilliant.
~ Prince William, Interview to the Press Association (30 May 2003).

We've got to have
We plot to have
For it's so dreary not to have
That certain thing called the Boy Friend.
~ Sandy Wilson, The Boyfriend (1954 song)

Friendship is to be purchased only by friendship. A man may have authority over others, but he can never have their hearts but by giving his own.
~ (Bishop) Thomas Wilson, in Maxims of Piety and of Christianity (first published in 1781).

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on.
~ Bill Withers, in Still Bill (1972 album). Lean On Me

My friendship it is not in my power to give. This is a gift which no man can make; it is not in our own power. A sound and healthy friendship is the growth of time and circumstance. It will spring up and thrive like a wild-flower when these favour, and when they do not it is in vain to look for it.
~ William Wordsworth, Letter to Thomas De Quincey (29 July 1803).

And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time's bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). The Poet Pleads with His Friend for Old Friends

Others because you did not keep
That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;
Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wild Swans at Coole (1917). A Deep-sworn Vow

Think where man's glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Last Poems (1936-39). The Municipal Gallery Re-visited (1939)