Authors:
  1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. H
  4. Henry David Thoreau
  5. Friendship

Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Friendship

All Henry David Thoreau Quotes Achievement Acting Adventure Age Aids Alcohol Ambition Anxiety Appreciation Army Art Atheism Atmosphere Attitude Authority Autumn Beach Beauty Beer Being Alone Being Yourself Bible Birth Bones Bravery Business Caring Change Character Charity Chastity Children Christ Christianity Church Civil Disobedience College Commitment Common Sense Communication Community Confidence Conformity Confusion Consciousness Constitution Contemplation Cooking Copper Country Courage Creation Creativity Criticism Culture Curiosity Darkness Death Deception Democracy Depression Design Desire Destiny Determination Devil Disappointment Discipline Dogma Doubt Drinking Duty Dying Earth Eating Ecology Economics Economy Education Effort Encouraging Energy Enthusiasm Environment Eternity Ethics Evil Excellence Exercise Expectations Experience Failing Failure Faith Fame Family Farming Fashion Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Finding Yourself Flying Focus Food Freedom Friends Friendship quotes Funny Future Gardening Generosity Genius Giving Giving Up God Gold Good Deeds Good Morning Goodbye Goodness Gossip Grace Graduation Gratitude Greatness Greed Greek Grief Grieving Growth Happiness Hard Work Harmony Hate Healing Health Heart Heaven Heroism History Home Honesty Honor Hope House Human Nature Humanity Humility Hunger Hunting Hypocrisy Ignorance Imagination Immortality Imperfection Impulse Independence Individuality Injustice Innocence Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Jesus Journalism Journey Joy Judging Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Language Latin Laughter Learning Liberty Life Listening Literature Live Life Loneliness Losing Loss Love Luck Lying Manhood Mankind Marriage Meditation Memories Mental Health Mercy Mindfulness Money Moon Morality Morning Motivation Motivational Mountain Music Nature Navy Observation Office Opportunity Optimism Overcoming Past Patience Patriotism Peace Perception Perfection Perseverance Personality Perspective Philanthropy Philosophy Physics Pleasure Poetry Police Politics Positive Poverty Power Praise Prayer Pride Privacy Progress Property Purity Purpose Quality Rain Reading Reality Rebellion Reflection Regret Reincarnation Religion Reputation Respect Responsibility Revelations Revolution Risk Running Sabbath Sacrifice Sad Sadness Sailing Sanity School Science Self Esteem Self Reliance Self Respect Serenity Silence Simple Life Simplicity Sin Sincerity Singing Skins Slavery Sleep Sloth Social Responsibility Society Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Sports Spring Strength Struggle Students Study Style Success Suffering Summer Sunrise Sunshine Sympathy Tea Teaching Technology Temperance Thanksgiving Time Today Tradition Tragedy Transcendentalism Travel True Love Trust Truth Understanding Universe Violence Virtue Vision Volunteer Voting Waiting Walking Wall War Water Weakness Wealth Weed Wilderness Wine Winter Wisdom Work Writing Yoga Youth
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

Henry David Thoreau
Motivational, Friendship, Nature
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.15, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us. The friend asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to each other's dreams.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Dream, Kind
"Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles".

We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves, that there may be grounds enough for friendship.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Needs, May
Henry David Thoreau, Bradford Torrey, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “Journal, ed. by Bradford Torrey, 1837-1846, 1850-Nov. 3, 1861”

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Best Friend, Happiness
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.29, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Best Friend, Ignorance
Henry David Thoreau (2001). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.182, Courier Corporation

The Friend asks no return but that his Friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to each other's dreams.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Dream, Apotheosis
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.192, Xist Publishing

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Best Friend, True Love
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.114, Penguin

I have seen some who did not know when to turn aside their eyes in meeting yours. A truly confident and magnanimous spirit is wiser than to contend for the mastery in such encounters. Serpents alone conquer by the steadiness of their gaze. My friend looks me in the face and sees me, that is all.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Eye, Snakes
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.496, Simon and Schuster

Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail.... It is a drama in which the parties have no part to act.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Drama, Party
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.112, Penguin

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.

Henry David Thoreau
Love, Friendship, Best Friend

Friendship is evanescent in every man's experience, and remembered like heat lightning in past summers.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Summer, Past
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.278

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 otherlaw nor kindness.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Wise, True Friend
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.114, Penguin

The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Happiness, Real Friends
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.9, Heron Dance Press

Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their lives. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the rich leave money to defray the expenses of their funerals, and their memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for our Friends have no place in the graveyard.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Memories, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.203, Xist Publishing

A noble person confers no such gift as his whole confidence: none so exalts the giver and the receiver; it produces the truest gratitude. Perhaps it is only essential to friendship that some vital trust should have been reposed by the one in the other. I feel addressed and probed even to the remotest parts of my being when one nobly shows, even in trivial things, an implicit faith in me.... A threat or a curse may be forgotten, but this mild trust translates me.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Trust, Gratitude
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.49, Jazzybee Verlag

I would that I were worthy to be any man's Friend.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Men, Worthy
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.110, Penguin

We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Men, Inspire
Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Walden, Civil Disobedience, and Other Writings: Authoritative Texts, Journal, Reviews and Posthumous Assessments, Criticism”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Home, Two
Walden ch. 6 (1854)

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Giving, Meals
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Treats, Surface
Henry David Thoreau (1993). “A Year in Thoreau's Journal: 1851”, p.314, Penguin

Friendship is never established as an understood relation. It is a miracle which requires constant proofs. It is an exercise of the purest imagination and of the rarest faith!

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Exercise, Imagination
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.9, Heron Dance Press

The only danger in Friendship is that it will end.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Danger, Ends
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.116, Penguin

What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do not, after all, love their Friends greatly. I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other's presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Wise, Wisdom
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.110, Penguin

My Friend is that one whom I can associate with my choicest thought.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Thinking, My Friends
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.229, Jazzybee Verlag

In love and friendship the imagination is as much exercised as the heart; and if either is outraged the other will be estranged. It is commonly the imagination which is wounded first, rather than the heart,--it is so much the more sensitive.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Heart, Imagination
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1138, Delphi Classics

You May Also Like: