I can’t think of anything that can make such a difference to one’s happiness and contentment as a close friendship. Friends can provide encouragement and inspiration, prevent loneliness, help you cope with trauma, reduce stress, improve your self-confidence, help you celebrate good times, and support you during bad times.
Here are 128 thought-provoking, heartwarming, and inspirational best friend quotes about real friendship almost guaranteed to get you searching for your new best friend.
1. “Of all possessions, a friend is the most precious.” – Herodotus
2. “I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.” – Helen Keller
3. “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” – Walter Winchell
4. “True friends are like diamonds – bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style.” – Unknown
5. “If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.” – Winnie the Pooh
6. “Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness.” – Euripides
7. “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway
8. “Sitting silently beside a friend who is hurting may be the best gift we can give.” – Unknown
9. “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
10. “True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks.” – St. Jerome
11. “True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.” – David Tyson
12. “There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.” – William Hazlitt
13. “Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.” – Washington Irving
14. “Everyone has a friend during each stage of life. But only lucky ones have the same friend in all stages of life.” – Unknown
15. “There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.” – Jim Henson
16. “A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.” – Leo Buscaglia
17. “Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.” – Thomas J. Watson
18. “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
19. “A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.” – Unknown
20.”Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.” – Oscar Wilde
21. “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” – Confucius
22. “Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.” – Khalil Gibran
23. “A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” – Arnold H. Glasgow
24. “Best friends share laughs, memories, and inside jokes. They will always be honest and stand by your side no matter what. They wipe your tears, pick you up when you fall, and are forever a piece of your heart.” – Unknown
25. “I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.” – Plutarch
26. “Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.” – Eustace Budgell
27. “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
28. “The real test of friendship is can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?” – Eugene Kennedy
29. “A best friend is someone who makes you laugh even when you think you’ll never smile again.” – Unknown
30. “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
31. “A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.” – Arnold H. Glasgow
32. “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy people.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
33. “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
34. “F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Fight for you. Respect you. Include you. Encourage you. Need you. Deserve you. Stand by you.” – Unknown
35. “If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together… there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart… I’ll always be with you.” – Winnie the Pooh
36. “When the world is so complicated, the simple gift of friendship is within all of our hands.” – Maria Shriver
37. “Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.” – Ally Condie
38. “One’s friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.” – George Santayana
39. “Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.” – Epicurus
40. “A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.” – William Shakespeare
41. “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
42. “For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” – Audrey Hepburn
43. “Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.” – Socrates
44. “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
45. “Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don’t over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness”. – Leo F. Buscaglia
46. “Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.” – Charles Lamb
47. “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust
48. “If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.” – Zig Ziglar
49. “A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.” – Charles Darwin
50. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
51. “You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool of yourself he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.” – Unknown
52. “A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.” – Elbert Hubbard
53. “Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.” – Aristotle
54. “You find out who your real friends are when you’re involved in a scandal.” – Elizabeth Taylor
55. “Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.” – Mark Twain
56. “Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.” – William Arthur Ward
57. “Friendship is essentially a partnership.” – Aristotle
58. “No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” – Alice Walker
59. “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” – Woodrow T. Wilson
60. “A true friend is someone who is there for you when he’d rather be anywhere else.” – Len Wein
61. “Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.” – Ed Cunningham
62. “Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.” – Oscar Wilde
63. “Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.” – Anthony Robbins
64. “The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” – Elisabeth Foley
65. “Friendship isn’t about who you’ve known the longest. It’s about who walked into your life, said “I’m here for you, and proved it.” – Unknown
66. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature.” – Jane Austen
67. “A true friend is someone who sees the pain in your eyes while everyone else believes the smile on your face.” – Unknown
68. “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” – Oprah Winfrey
69. “All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand.” – Ella Wheeler Wilcox
70. “A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling.” – Arthur Brisbane
71. “Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” – Elie Wiesel
72. “A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence; which costs us nothing.” – John Tillotson
73. “Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can’t have too many friends because then you’re just not really friends.” – Truman Capote
74. “Best friends. Because if anyone else heard our conversations we’d end up in the mental hospital.” – Unknown
75. “True friends aren’t the ones who make your problems disappear. They are the ones who won’t disappear when your facing problems.” – Unknown
76. “When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.” – Donald Miller
77. “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.” – Anais Nin
78. “Real friendship is when your friend comes over to your house and then you both just take a nap.” – Unknown
79. “If you have one true friend you have more than your share.” – Thomas Fuller
80. “Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.” – Virginia Woolf
81. “Every friendship goes through ups and downs. Dysfunctional patterns set in; external situations cause internal friction; you grow apart and then bounce back together.” – Mariella Frostrup
82. “If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.” – Maxwell Maltz
83. “The language of friendship is not words but meanings.” – Henry David Thoreau
84. “A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” – Bernard Meltzer
85. “One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.” – Euripides
86. “A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your success!” – Doug Larson
87. “Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.” – Thomas Aquinas
88. “One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
89. “The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.” – Henry David Thoreau
90. “Things are never quite as scary when you’ve got a best friend.” – Bill Watterson
91. “There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” – Thomas Aquinas
92. “The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.” – Dale Carnegie
93. “Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” – Albert Camus
94. “To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world.” – Brandi Snyder
95. “Friendship is a word, the very sight of which in print makes heart warm.” – Augustine Birrell
96. “Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.” – Baltasar Gracian
97. “Many a person has held close, throughout their entire lives, two friends that always remained strange to one another, because one of them attracted by virtue of similarity, the other by difference.” – Emil Ludwig
98. “A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.” – Unknown
99. “Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.” – Francesco Guicciardini
100. “People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.” – Joseph F. Newton Men
101. “Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.” – Charles Kingsley
102. “A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.” – Donna Roberts
103. “No friendship is an accident.” – O. Henry
104. “There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.” – Linda Grayson
105. “That’s when I realized what a true friend was. Someone who would always love you… the imperfect you, the confused you, the wrong you… because that is what people are supposed to do.” – Unknown
106. “It is the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” – Marlene Dietrich
107. “Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.” – Gloria Naylor
108. “Sometimes being with your best friend is all the therapy you need.” – Unknown
109. “There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.” – Diana Cortes
110. “Someone to tell it to is one of the fundamental needs of human beings.” – Miles Franklin
111. “A friend is what the heart needs all the time.” – Henry Van Dyke
112. “Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
113. “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.” – Henry Ford
114. “It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.” – Epicurus
115. “Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.” – William James
116. “The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
117. “A friend is someone who makes it easy to believe in yourself.” – Heidi Wills
118. “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” – Abraham Lincoln
119. “The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares.” – Henri Nouwen
120. “A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have.” – Irish Proverb
121. “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
122. “Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.” – Tennessee Williams
123. “Friendship is one mind in two bodies.” – Mencius
124. “If it’s very painful for you to criticize your friends – you’re safe in doing it. But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that’s the time to hold your tongue.” – Alice Duer Miller
125. “The best time to make friends is before you need them.” – Ethel Barrymore
126. “The great thing about new friends is that they bring new energy to your soul.” – Shanna Rodriguez
127. “Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget”. – Unknown
128. “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel”. – Carl W. Buechner
