120 Deep and Meaningful Quotes About Friendship

Friendship is one of the most profound human connections we can experience. True friends offer companionship, support, and understanding in ways that enrich our lives, encourage our growth, and stand by us through both joyous and challenging times. These quotes capture the essence of friendship—its beauty, depth, and significance. Let them inspire you to celebrate the friends who bring light into your life and remind you of the value in being a friend to others.

Here are 120 quotes about friendship to reflect on and share with those you cherish.

1-10: On the Value and Meaning of Friendship

1. “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” — Walter Winchell
2. “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
3. “A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” — Elbert Hubbard
4. “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” — Woodrow Wilson
5. “A friend to all is a friend to none.” — Aristotle
6. “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
7. “There are friends, there is family, and then there are friends that become family.” — Unknown
8. “Friendship is not about whom you have known the longest, it is about who came and never left your side.” — Unknown
9. “Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.” — Ed Cunningham
10. “A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.” — Maya Angelou

11-20: Friendship as a Source of Strength and Comfort

11. “Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
12. “A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.” — Leo Buscaglia
13. “The language of friendship is not words but meanings.” — Henry David Thoreau
14. “True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart.” — Helen Keller
15. “Some souls just understand each other upon meeting.” — N.R. Hart
16. “A friend is what the heart needs all the time.” — Henry Van Dyke
17. “There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” — Thomas Aquinas
18. “Friends are the siblings God never gave us.” — Mencius
19. “To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world.” — Dr. Seuss
20. “A true friend is someone who is there for you when they would rather be anywhere else.” — Len Wein

21-30: Friendship as Loyalty and Trust

21. “True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.” — David Tyson
22. “Friendship is delicate as a glass, once broken it can be fixed but there will always be cracks.” — Waqar Ahmed
23. “The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” — Elisabeth Foley
24. “One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.” — Lucius Annaeus Seneca
25. “True friends stab you in the front.” — Oscar Wilde
26. “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
27. “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
28. “No friendship is an accident.” — O. Henry
29. “One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.” — Euripides
30. “A friend is someone who makes it easy to believe in yourself.” — Heidi Wills

31-40: On Supporting and Celebrating Each Other

31. “True friendship isn’t about being inseparable; it’s about being separated and nothing changes.” — Unknown
32. “Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world.” — John Evelyn
33. “A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.” — Donna Roberts
34. “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” — Mark Twain
35. “Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness.” — Euripides
36. “A friend is a gift you give yourself.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
37. “A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be.” — Douglas Pagels
38. “It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” — Marlene Dietrich
39. “A friendship that can end never really began.” — Publilius Syrus
40. “A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” — Arnold H. Glasow

41-50: Friendship and Its Transformative Power

41. “In my friend, I find a second self.” — Isabel Norton
42. “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
43. “There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first.” — Paramahansa Yogananda
44. “Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.” — Khalil Gibran
45. “Of all possessions, a friend is the most precious.” — Herodotus
46. “The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.” — Abraham Lincoln
47. “Friends are the sunshine of life.” — John Hay
48. “A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” — Jim Morrison
49. “A friend can tell you things you don’t want to tell yourself.” — Frances Ward Weller
50. “When a friend does something wrong, don’t forget all the things they did right.” — Unknown

51-60: Cherishing Friendship’s Beauty and Depth

51. “A friend’s eye is a good mirror.” — Irish Proverb

52. “Where there are friends, there is wealth.” — Titus Maccius Plautus

53. “Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.” — Samuel Butler

54. “The best mirror is an old friend.” — George Herbert

55. “Friendship is the wine of life.” — Edward Young

56. “Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit.” — Aristotle

57. “A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.” — Unknown

58. “One loyal friend is worth more than a thousand fake ones.” — Unknown

59. “Friends are medicine for a wounded heart and vitamins for a hopeful soul.” — Steve Maraboli

60. “Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.” — Baltasar Gracián

61-70: Friendship as a Reflection of Ourselves

61. “A true friend reaches for your hand and touches your heart.” — Unknown
62. “Friendship is a sheltering tree.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
63. “Friends are like stars; you don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there.” — Unknown
64. “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.” — Anaïs Nin
65. “There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.” — Linda Grayson
66. “The best time to make friends is before you need them.” — Ethel Barrymore
67. “Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.” — G. Randolf
68. “Some people arrive and make such a beautiful impact on your life, you can barely remember what life was like without them.” — Anna Taylor
69. “When the world is so complicated, the simple gift of friendship is within all of our hands.” — Maria Shriver
70. “Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which increases with the setting sun of life.” — Jean de La Fontaine

71-80: Friendship and Loyalty Through Life’s Highs and Lows

71. “Friends are like walls. Sometimes you lean on them, and sometimes it’s good just knowing they’re there.” — Unknown
72. “Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.” — Tennessee Williams
73. “Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.” — Thomas Aquinas
74. “Friends are like angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.” — Unknown
75. “True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.” — Charles Caleb Colton
76. “It’s not what we have in life, but who we have in our life that matters.” — Unknown
77. “No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow.” — Alice Walker
78. “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
79. “A friend is someone who makes it easy to believe in yourself.” — Heidi Wills
80. “The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.” — Barbara Kingsolver

81-90: The Beauty and Simplicity of True Friendship

81. “One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.” — Clifton Fadiman
82. “Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.” — Eustace Budgell
83. “In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.” — John Churton Collins
84. “A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.” — Charles Darwin
85. “Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession; friendship is never anything but sharing.” — Elie Wiesel
86. “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
87. “Friends are the family you choose.” — Jess C. Scott
88. “Friends make the world beautiful.” — Unknown
89. “Friendship is the comfort that comes from knowing that even when you feel all alone, you aren’t.” — Unknown
90. “Friends are the sailors who guide your rickety boat safely across the dangerous waters of life.” — Sare and Cate

91-100: Friendship as a Beacon of Light and Love

91. “The only thing better than having a friend is being one.” — Unknown
92. “Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world.” — John Evelyn
93. “There is no distance too far between friends, for friendship gives wings to the heart.” — Unknown
94. “Friends are the people who make you smile brighter, laugh louder, and live better.” — Unknown
95. “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
96. “True friendship isn’t about being there when it’s convenient; it’s about being there when it’s not.” — Unknown
97. “Friends are like flowers; they fill the world with beauty.” — Unknown
98. “You find out who your real friends are when you’re involved in a scandal.” — Elizabeth Taylor
99. “In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.” — Salman Rushdie
100. “Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.” — Helen Keller

101-110: The Gifts and Lessons of True Friendship

101. “A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.” — Unknown
102. “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” — Dale Carnegie
103. “A true friend is the greatest of all blessings.” — François de La Rochefoucauld
104. “Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.” — Anna Deavere Smith
105. “The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.” — Hubert H. Humphrey
106. “One friend in a storm is worth more than a thousand friends in sunshine.” — Matshona Dhliwayo
107. “Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world.” — John Evelyn
108. “Friendship is the greatest gift we have.” — Unknown
109. “Friends should be like books, easy to find when you need them, but seldom used.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
110. “A friend is what the heart needs all the time.” — Henry Van Dyke

111-120: Friendship’s Lasting Impact on Life

111. “We are born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we are not alone.” — Orson Welles
112. “There are friendships imprinted in our hearts that will never be diminished by time and distance.” — Dodinsky
113. “The world is round so that friendship may encircle it.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
114. “Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.” — Khalil Gibran
115. “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
116. “A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out.” — Grace Pulpit
117. “Friendship makes prosperity more brilliant, and lightens adversity by dividing and sharing it.” — Cicero
118. “A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.” — Donna Roberts
119. “The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.” — Abraham Lincoln
120. “A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” — Elbert Hubbard

Conclusion

Friendship, as these quotes remind us, is a treasured bond that endures through time, distance, and the ups and downs of life. True friends illuminate our lives, inspire our best selves, and offer unwavering support when we need it most. Cherish these friends, and remember that the gift of friendship is often reciprocated in the small, beautiful moments shared along the way.