Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Mel Levine, formally Melvin D Levine

Friendship involves intimacy, sharing and mutual support... Most often, boys cultivate friendships around activities… Girls look for friends with whom they can share inner sentiments, communicate, and generally feel comfortable. They are much less compelled to justify a relationship on the basis of shared recreational agendas… It is not that boys don’t want to communicate intimately with other boys, nor is it true that girls shun joint activities. To the contrary, both needs pertain to both groups, but there are significant differences in the extent to which they determine and frame relationships.

Boys | Justify | Relationship | Friends |

Wilson Mizner

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

Friends |

Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

A prince… who wishes to guard against conspiracies should fear those on whom he has heaped benefits quite as much, and even more, than those whom he has wronged; for the latter lack the convenient opportunities which the former have in abundance. The intention of both is the same for the thirst of dominion is as great as that of revenge, and even greater. A prince, therefore, should never bestow so much authority upon his friends but that there should always be a certain distance between them and himself, and that there should always be something left for them to desire.

Abundance | Authority | Desire | Fear | Intention | Revenge | Wishes | Friends |

William Penn

They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided, that love and live in the same divine principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs. Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

Absence | Comfort | Death | Kill | Love | Society | World | Friendship | Society | Friends |

William Penn

Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their Friendship. If Absence be not Death, neither is it theirs. Death is but crossing the world, as Friends do the Seas; they live in one another still.

Absence | Death | Kill | Love | World | Friends |

Mario Puzo, fully Mario Gianluigi Puzo

Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.

Friends |

John Ray or Wray

In time of prosperity friends will be plenty. In times of adversity not one among twenty.

Adversity | Plenty | Prosperity | Time | Will | Friends |

Michael J. Tucker

Forget your enemies. It's your friends you frustrate that cause all the problems.

Cause | Problems | Friends |

Ambrose Gwinett Bierce

Future, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness is assured.

Future | Time | Friends | Happiness |

Aristotle NULL

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

Work | Friendship | Friends |

Aristotle NULL

If, then, being is in itself desirable for the supremely happy man (since it is by its nature good and pleasant), and that of his friends very much the same, a friend will be one of the things that are desirable. Now that which is desirable form him must have, or he will be deficient in this respect. The man who is to be happy will therefore need virtuous friends.

Friend | Good | Happy | Man | Nature | Need | Respect | Will | Friends |

Aristotle NULL

Between friends there is no need of justice.

Justice | Need | Friends |

Aristotle NULL

We should behave to our friends as we would wish our friends to behave to us.

Friends |

Aristotle NULL

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds

Aid | Comfort | Deeds | Life | Life | Poverty | Weakness | Friends | Old |

Aristotle NULL

The man with a host of friends who slaps on the back everybody he meets is regarded as the friend of nobody.

Friend | Man | Friends |

Aristotle NULL

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need friends most of all; for what is the use of such prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence, which is exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards friends?... With friends men are more able both to think and to act.

Men | Need | Office | Opportunity | Power | Prosperity | Thought | Friends | Think | Thought |

Aristotle NULL

Young men have strong passions, and tend to gratify them indiscriminately... They have as yet met with few disappointments. Their lives are mainly spent not in memory but in expectation; for expectation refers to the future, memory to the past, and youth has a long future before it and a short past behind it: on the first day of one’s life one has nothing at all to remember, and can only look forward... They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning; and whereas reasoning leads us to choose what is useful, moral goodness leads us to choose what is noble. They are fonder of their friends, intimates, and companions than older men are, because they like spending their days in the company of others, and have not yet come to value either their friends or anything else by their usefulness to themselves. All their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They disobey Chilon’s precept by overdoing everything; they love too much and hate too much, and the same thing with everything else. They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.

Day | Deeds | Expectation | Future | Hate | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Men | Nothing | Past | Precept | Usefulness | Youth | Deeds | Youth | Expectation | Friends | Think | Value |

Author Unknown NULL

Prosperity makes friends and adversity tries them.

Adversity | Prosperity | Friends |

Baltasar Gracián

Trust the friends of to-day as if they will be enemies to-morrow.

Day | Trust | Will | Friends |