Quotes by Philosophers - Page 297

By your behavior you send signals on how people should treat you
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him, I want, but not news nor pottage. I can get politics, and chat, and neighborly conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal, and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us not vilify, bur raise it to that standard. That great, defying eye, that scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on reducing, but rather fortify and enhance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I know not what quintessence of all this mixture, which, seizing my whole will, carried it to plunge and lose itself in his, and that having seized his whole will, brought it back with equal concurrence and appetite to plunge and lose itself in mine.
Michel de Montaigne
Do they desire to join me in thanksgiving when they hear how, by your gift, I have come close to you, and do they pray for me when they hear how I am held back by my own weight? ...A brotherly mind will love in me what you teach to be lovable, and will regret in me what you teach to be regrettable. This is a mark of a Christian brother's mind, not an outsider's--not that of 'the sons of aliens whose mouth speaks vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity' (Ps. 143:7 f.). A brotherly person rejoices on my account when he approves me, but when he disapproves, he is loving me. To such people I will reveal myself. They will take heart from my good traits, and sigh with sadness at my bad ones. My good points are instilled by you and are your gifts. My bad points are my faults and your judgements on them. Let them take heart from the one and regret the other. Let both praise and tears ascend in your sight from brotherly hearts, your censers. ...But you Lord...Make perfect my imperfections
Augustine of Hippo
We have better relationships with those who truly seek us rather than those sitting on the couch watching us move mountains trying to prove ourselves.
Criss Jami
In a general sense, I admit to valuing the worldviews of men under the age of 40 and women over the age of 30.
Criss Jami
Why had we let it go? Why had we both been condemned...to an exile among dreary strangers who had made us give up all desire for rest, for friendship, for the sound of human voices? Could I now reclaim a single hour spent talking to my brother, Philip, and give it to Ken Daggart? Who made it our duty to accept, as the only reward for our work, the gray torture of pretending love for those who roused nothing but contempt?
Ayn Rand
For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak, But only thinks and does; Though surely out 'twill leak Without the help of Greek, Or any tongue.
Henry David Thoreau
As many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe. My friends have come to me unsought.... Will these, too, seperate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but I fear it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by simple affinity, and the Genius of my life being thus social, the same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these men and women, wherever I may be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Alain Badiou was once seated amongst the public in a room where I was delivering a talk, when his cellphone (which, to add insult to injury, was mine -- I had lent it to him) all of a sudden started to ring. Instead of turning it off, he gently interrupted me and asked me if I could talk more softly, so that he could hear his interlocutor more clearly . . . If this was not an act of true friendship, I do not know what friendship is. So, this book is dedicated to Alain Badiou.
Slavoj Žižek
The world is round so that friendship may encircle it.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Because thou writest me often, I thank thee ... Never do I receive a letter from thee, but immediately we are together.
Seneca
The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone for a season, that it may exalt its conversation or society.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
An Eastern poet, Ali Ben Abu Taleb, writes with sad truth, —"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are three types of friends: those like food without which you can't live those like medicine which you need occasionally and those like an illness which you never want.
Solomon ibn Gabirol
Let us even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, "Who are you? Unhand me: I will be dependent no more." Ah! seest thou not, O brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be more each other's, because we are more our own?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thunderstorms are as much our friends as the sunshine.
Criss Jami
What madness, to love a man as something more than human! I lived in a fever, convulsed with tears and sighs that allowed me neither rest nor peace of mind. My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or laughter, none in the company of friends at table or in the pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry. Everything that was not what my friend had been was dull and distasteful. I had heart only for sighs and tears, for in them alone I found some shred of consolation.
Augustine of Hippo
The cult of friendship disturbs me. It's like our quality is supposed to be measured by the number of friends we have. For me, it's quite the inverse. When somebody says "I'm friends with everyone" I just assume they have the spine of your average jellyfish and the integrity of your average soap dish. "I have tons of close friends!" Ok, then you obviously have no standards. "I've slept with lots of people!" Good, I will shake your hand from inside this Hazmat suit. It's like you have to have friends or you're nothing, and you gotta have lots of friends, and the more friends you have the more value you have. This Is a way of lowering our standards to fit in. I'm a big fan of quality over quantity. Everyone wants to look at their life like it's a beer commercial they can just climb into. The larger the circle of friends the more alcohol is involved to blind yourself to the fact that you cant stand most of these assholes.
Stefan Molyneux
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.
Bertrand Russell
That men of this kind despise women, though a not uncommon belief, is one which hardly appears to be justified. Indeed, though naturally not inclined to 'fall in love' in this direction, such men are by their nature drawn rather near to women, and it would seem that they often feel a singular appreciation and understanding of the emotional needs and destinies of the other sex, leading in many cases to a genuine though what is called 'Platonic' friendship. There is little doubt that they are often instinctively sought after by women, who, without suspecting the real cause, are conscious of a sympathetic chord in the homogenic which they miss in the normal man.
Edward Carpenter
In good company there is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes place when you leave them alone. In good company, the individuals merge their egotism into a social soul exactly coextensive with the several consciousnesses there present. No partialities of friend to friend, no fondnesses of brother to sister, of wife to husband, are there pertinent, but quite otherwise. Only he may then speak who can sail on the common thought of the party, and not poorly limited to his own. Now this convention, which good sense demands, destroys the high freedom of great conversation, which requires an absolute running of two souls into one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with
Seneca
True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... To find one real friend in a lifetime is a good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.
Baltasar Gracián
Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … 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 mere inertia.
William James
Friendship is an obstetric art; it draws out our richest and deepest resources; it unfolds the wings of our dreams and hidden indeterminate thoughts; it serves as a check on our judgements, tries out our new ideas, keeps up our ardor, and inflames our enthusiasm.
Antonin Sertillanges
There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.
Henry David Thoreau
This pause in time, within time ... When did I first experience the exquisite sense of surrender that is only possible with another person? The peace of mind one experiences on one's own, one's certainty of self in the serenity of solitude, are nothing in comparison to the release and openness and fluency one shares with another, in close companionship ...
Muriel Barbery
Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.
Aldous Huxley
Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.
Baltasar Gracián
Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back
Blaise Pascal
It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.
Epicurus
Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.
Francis Bacon
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.
Michel de Montaigne
If you have but one friend, make sure you choose her well.
Muriel Barbery
The real frienship is like fluorescence, it shines better when everything has darken.
Rabindranath Tagore
The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.
Immanuel Kant
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work but the solidest things we know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.
Jean de La Bruyère
The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.
Henry David Thoreau
Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods.
Aristotle
We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.
William James
Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief
Marcus Tullius Cicero
When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.
Aristotle
Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.
Socrates
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
Henry David Thoreau
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
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
Aristotle
A friend to all is a friend to none.
Aristotle
Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.
Amos Bronson Alcott
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle
Don’t walk in front of me… I may not followDon’t walk behind me… I may not leadWalk beside me… just be my friend
Albert Camus