Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Friendship

Love Friendship Happiness Hope Fear Courage Death Life Time War Peace Freedom Truth Wisdom Knowledge Science Art Music Nature Money Work Power God Beauty Laughter Family Success and failure Change Dreams Books and reading

“Hail Guest! We ask not what thou art: If Friend, we greet thee, hand and heart; If Stranger, such no longer be; If Foe, our love shall conquer thee.”
Arthur Guiterman (1871–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We'll play jacks and Uno cards I'll be your best friend And you'll be mine”
Fergie (born 1975) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Big Girls Don't Cry" (2006), from The Dutchess.
“The one Lord who created the world is the Lord of all. Fortunate is their advent into the world, whose hearts remain attached to God's service. O foolish man, why hast thou forgotten Him? When thou adjustest thine account, my friend, thou shalt be deemed educated. The Primal Being is the Giver; He alone is true. No account shall be due by the pious man who understandeth by means of these letters.”
Guru Nanak (1469–1539) said by 1539 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Flattery Is monstrous in a true friend.”
John Ford (dramatist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have always been a friend to hero-worship; it is the only rational one, and has always been in use amongst civilized people.”
George Borrow (1803–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I never indulge sentiment over broken friendships. We have extracted all we need from a friend, and so get rid of him on the same terms as he gets rid of us.”
Norman Lindsay (1879–1969) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bohemians of the Bulletin (Sydney, 1965), p. 53
“Yes, social friend, I love thee well, In learned doctors’ spite; Thy clouds all other clouds dispel, And lap me in delight.”
Charles Sprague (1791–1875) said by 1875 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To my Cigar, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Shaw presumes that his friend Stalin has everything under control. Well, Stalin may have made special arrangements to see that Shaw comes to no harm, but the rest of us in Western Europe do not feel quite so sure of our fate, especially those of us who do not share Shaw's curious admiration for dictators.”
J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The War - And After", in Horizon magazine (January 1940), reprinted in Andrew Sinclair (ed.) War Decade: An Anthology of the 1940s (1989)
“Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise.”
Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867) said by 1867 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who's your daddy? Who's your baby? Who's your buddy? Who's your friend? And who's the one guy that you come runnin' to When your lovelife starts tumblin'?I got the money if you got the honey Let's cut a deal, let's make a plan Who's your daddy? Who's your baby? Who's your buddy? Who's your man?”
Toby Keith (1961–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm gonna miss that smile, I'm gonna miss you my friend Even though it hurts the way it ended up, I'd do it all again So play it sweet in heaven 'cause that's right where you wanna be I'm not cryin' 'cause I feel so sorry for you, I'm cryin' for me.”
Toby Keith (1961–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man decides after seventy years, That what he goes there for, is to unlock the door. While those around him criticize and sleep... And through a fractal on a breaking wall, I see you my friend, and touch your face again. Miracles will happen as we trip.But we're never gonna survive, unless... We get a little crazy”
Seal (musician) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sir, you must be all caution and no fear, and you'll find true what our old friend Archimedes said some while ago.”
John Byrom (1692–1763) said by 1763 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick Jack Flash sat on a candlestick 'Cause fire is the Devil's only friend Oh, and as I watched him on the stage My hands were clenched in fists of rage No angel born in hell Could break that Satan's spell And as the flames climbed high into the night To light the sacrificial rite I saw Satan laughing with delight The day the music died.”
Don McLean (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Speak no ill of a friend, nor even of an enemy.”
Pittacus of Mytilene (651–571 BC) said by 571 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An old friend once told me, you don't go fill up your car with gas at night and then park it in the garage.”
Gary Player (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Great Helpers of humanity do not abandon the Earth so long as sufferings go unhealed. Wholehearted fellowship can easily heal the wounds of a friend — but it is necessary to develop the art of thinking in the name of Good. And this is not easy amid the day's hustle and bustle. But the examples of the Great Helpers of humanity can encourage and infuse new forces.”
Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After Montesquieu, the next great addition to Sociology (which is the term I may be allowed to invent to designate Social Physics) was made by Condorcet, proceeding on the views suggested by his illustrious friend Turgot.”
Auguste Comte (1798–1857) said by 1857 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But no, the friend’s indictment was off target; he simply liked them tall, as long as they didn’t slump down in a forlorn effort to appear shorter. It seemed obvious to him that no woman looked good trying to be something she wasn’t.”
Gregory Benford (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Good sirs, take heart: — We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble, Let's do it after the high Roman fashion, And make Death proud to take us. Come, away: This case of that huge spirit now is cold. — Ah, women, women! — come; we have no friend But resolution, and the briefest end.”
Cleopatra (69–30 BC) said by 30 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If Litvinenko, Felshtinsky, Satter and I could discover the truth about the Moscow apartment bombings, so could the CIA and MI6. What happened instead was a sick-think by the Western foreign-policy establishment. They wanted to believe that Putin was a democrat, a friend of the West, someone with whom they could do business. They set out to bury the evidence to the contrary.”
John Sweeney (journalist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe, Bold I can meet,—perhaps may turn his blow! But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, Save, save, oh save me from the candid friend!”
George Canning (1770–1827) said by 1827 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’ll tell you something. Once I was very fond of a poem by Emily Dickinson or somebody. I only remember one line of it, but it goes, ‘The soul selects her own society.’ I used to tell it to everybody. Once I quoted it to a friend of mine, and he said, ’Maybe, but the body gets thrown into bed with the goddamnedest people.’”
Peter S. Beagle (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A serious mistake in a nightie, A grave disappointment all round Is all that you'll get from th'Almighty, Is all that you'll get underground. Oh he said: "If you lay off the crumpet I'll see you alright in the end. Just hang on until the last trumpet. Have faith in me, chum – I'm your friend.”
James Fenton (born 1949) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: God, a Poem", line 5, from Children in Exile (1983)
“My husband, Austin Davies, taught John Lennon at . In fact, the night we separated, my husband had a party in our house to which the Beatles, John Lennon, —the one who died—and I can’t remember who else, came. The party went on for three days and nights; I moved out down the road to a friend’s house with the children, and later we divorced amicably. I never saw the Beatles again.”
Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The time shall come When man to man shall be a friend and brother.”
Gerald Massey (1828–1907) said by 1907 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hope on, hope ever, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Tell your friend, Veronica It's time you celebrate Chanukah I hope I get a harmonica On this lovely, lovely Chanukah So drink your gin and tonic-ah And smoke your marijuani-khah If you really, really wanna-kah Have a happy, happy, happy, happy Chanukah Happy Chanukah”
Adam Sandler (born 1966) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Diamonds are supposed to be a girl's best friend but it's impossible to know for sure where they have come from so I find it is safer just to avoid them altogether.”
Leona Lewis (born 1985) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bang Showbiz, December 2007
“Trust no friend without faults, and love a maiden, but no angel.”
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) said by 1781 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, as quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 499
Also quoted by: Doris Lessing (misattributed)
“Unwilling friend, let not your spite abate; Help me with scorn, and strengthen me with hate.”
John Davidson (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. I like to read Archie Ammons, my great friend. And Harold Bloom, another former student.”
M. H. Abrams (1912–2015) said by 2015 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is an odd mode of diminishing one's own weakness to ask a friend to lend us the equal force of his.”
Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) said by 1845 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I must stop to lament, that we cannot evince an admiring gratitude towards other excellent things by a like readiness of quotation: that we cannot, for instance, quote a star that we have been watching; or a hue of sunset; or a friend's voice, and his shake of the hand (I had almost said heart); or a beautiful picture—a Claude or Titian, for example.”
Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) said by 1845 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They say the doctors and the nurses are least likely to catch the epidemic. If you have a friend who is dishonest or impure, the surest way to save yourself from him is to try to save him.”
Phillips Brooks (1835–1893) said by 1893 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fare you well, old house! you're naught that can feel or see, But you seem like a human bein'—a dear old friend to me; And we never will have a better home, if my opinion stands, Until we commence a-keepin' house in the house not made with hands.”
Will Carleton (1845–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thou first, best friend that Heav'n assigns below To sooth and sweeten all the cares we know.”
Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) said by 1855 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[on LL Cool J's name] He obviously went to a school where you get to pick your own fucking nickname, he did. "I shall be 'LL Cool J', 'Ladies Love Cool James'". "Nice one, God I wish I'd thought of that one for myself." If I'd gone to his school, my nickname probably would have been 'LL Nice E B T G P H A A F', which stands for 'Ladies Like Nice Ed But They Generally Prefer Him As A Friend'.”
Ed Byrne (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have been taking stock of my 50 years since I left Wichita. How I have existed fills me with horror for I failed in everything. Spelling, arithmetic, writing, swimming, tennis, golf, dancing, singing, acting, wife, mistress, whore, friend, even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of not trying. I tried with all my heart.”
Louise Brooks (1906–1985) said by 1985 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Looking for Lulu (1998)
“Tell the Trustees I think it is a very good Sickert — but the question is whether he is important enough for the Tate. I think not; but as an old friend of the artist perhaps I am a prejudiced judge.”
James Bolivar Manson (1879–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Frances Spalding, The Tate: A History (1998), pp. 62–70. Tate Gallery Publishing, London. .
“There under the cross is the sinner's sanctuary — there, my friend, is the place for you and me. The first smiling look we shall get from God will be when looking unto Jesus; and the first time that we shall experience the alacrity of a lightened conscience, the relief and elasticity of the great life-burden lifted off, will be when we have laid our sins on the Lamb of God.”
James Hamilton (1814–1871) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This government of yours does not please me, and I cannot trust it; you must change it and give me a pledge that you will observe everything you promised; otherwise you will soon realize that I do not want to live this way; and I will not ...my friend ...my enemy.”
Cesare Borgia (1475–1507) said by 1507 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.”
Sarah Dessen (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That night I made copies of all the documents with shaking hands and gave them to a friend with contacts in the British secret services. I had a bitter taste in my mouth.”
Jani Allan (1952–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In his joy, he said again, ‘Thank you, sir.’ The man did not reply; he was talking to his friend again, with a cigarette in his mouth.”
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the self-congratulatory part of the evening is over, maybe we could get back to saving my best friend from being exsanguinated to death?”
Cassandra Clare (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One who reveals your faults to you like a mirror is your true friend, and one who flatters you and covers up your faults is your enemy.”
Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) said by 680 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wisdom and intellect is every man's friend, ignorance and illiteracy are his enemies.”
Ali al-Rida (770–818) said by 818 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyone's friend is his reason; his enemy is his ignorance.”
Ali al-Rida (770–818) said by 818 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mind the time when you would be lying before your family members, and there would be no physician to stop it (death), and no friend to benefit you.”
Ali al-Hadi (829–868) said by 868 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why must I forever lose, forever forgo profit that is my due, Sunk in the gloom of evenings past, no plans for the morrow pursue. Why must I all attentive be to the nightingale's lament? Friend, am I as dumb as a flower? Must I remain silent? My theme makes me bold, makes my tongue more eloquent. Dust be in my mouth, against Allah I make complaint.”
Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source