And Friendship Quotes

Our time was most delightfully spent, in mutual Protestations of Freindship, and in vows of unalterable Love, in which we were secure from being interrupted, by intruding and disagreeable Visistors, as Augustus and Sophia had on their first Entrance in the Neighbourhood, taken due care to inform the surrounding Families, that as their happiness centered wholly in themselves, they wished for no other society. ~ Jane Austen

Shouldn't we at least be asking whether the transcending of venereal desire that marriage requires of a mostly or entirely 'heterosexual' man who marries for the sake of love, friendship, and raising a family isn't more or less the same as the transcendence required of a man whose venereal desire is 'oriented' mostly or entirely toward men but who restrains these drives, and who marries for the sake of love, friendship and raising a family? Of course, men with little venereal desire for women can't proceed towards marriage driven by such desire. For them, marriage must develop from friendship. But wouldn't it be better if all marriages developed from friendship? ~ Jonathan Mills

I say, Théoden King: shall we have peace and friendship, you and I? It is ours to command."
"We will have peace," said Théoden at last thickly and with an effort. Several of the Riders cried out gladly. Théoden held up his hand. "Yes, we will have peace," he said now in a clear voice, "we will have peace, when you and all your works have perished--and the works of your dark master to whom you would deliver us. You are a liar, Saruman, and a corrupter a men's hearts. You hold out your hand it to me, and I perceive only a finger of the claw of Mordor. Cruel and cold! Even if your war on me was just--as it was not, for were you ten times as wise you would have no right to rule me and mine for your own profit as you desired--even so, what will you say of your torches in Westfold and the children that lie dead there? And they hewed Háma's body before the gates of the Hornburg, after he was dead. When you hang from a gibbet at your window for the sport of your own crows, I will have peace with you and Orthanic. So much for the house of Eorl. A lesser son of great sires am I, but I do not need to lick your fingers. Turn elsewhither. But I fear your voice has lost its charm. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;
And liquor likewise will I give to thee,
And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood. ~ William Shakespeare

I had been poor myself, and knew what awaited him in the world. He would find that they who fawned on him most would be first to turn their backs on him now. He would be rudely disillusioned regarding the fables of love and friendship, and would become cynical, bitter, and sceptical of there being any disinterested good in human nature. ~ Miles Franklin

Good moral character is not something that we can achieve on our own. We need a culture that supports the conditions under which self-love and friendship flourish. ~ Aristotle.

Because everything of value that we will know in this life comes from our relationships with those around us. Because there is nothing material that measures against the intangibles of love and friendship. ~ R.A. Salvatore

For love doesn't stand alone, nor can it, but trails like a blazing comet, bringing with it other shining goods - forgiveness, kindness, tolerance, fairness, companionability and friendship, all bound to the love which is at the heart of Jesus's message. ~ Ian McEwan

Men's minds are given to change in hate and friendship. ~ Sophocles

I know it is hard for you young mothers to believe that almost before you can turn around the children will be gone and you will be alone with your husband. You had better be sure you are developing the kind of love and friendship that will be delightful and enduring. Let the children learn from your attitude that he is important. Encourage him. Be kind. It is a rough world, and he, like everyone else, is fighting to survive. Be cheerful. Don't be a whiner. ~ Marjorie Pay Hinckley

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence. ~ George Eliot

Dear Eloisa (said I) there's no occasion for your crying so much about such a trifle. (for I was willing to make light of it in order to comfort her) I beg you would not mind it – You see it does not vex me in the least; though perhaps I may suffer most from it after all; for I shall not only be obliged to eat up all the Victuals I have dressed already, but must if Henry should recover (which however is not very likely) dress as much for you again; or should he die (as I suppose he will) I shall still have to prepare a Dinner for you whenever you marry any one else. So you see that tho perhaps for the present it may afflict you to think of Henry's sufferings, yet I dare say he'll die soon and then his pain will be over and you will be easy, whereas my Trouble will last much longer for work as hard as I may, I am certain that the pantry cannot be cleared in less than a fortnight ~ Jane Austen

This is the very basis of inspiration and friendship, both of which are, in essence, spiritual connections. No two people are exactly the same, though they may share fragments of each other's personality. Some may feel so uncannily connected as to be kindred spirits, watching the world through different eyes but hearts aligned, the canvas of consciousness cast in common colors, struggling to express the same thoughts and gleefully snapping their fingers when the other puts it just right, finishing each other's sentences on page, screen, or scroll - across the decades, centuries, millennia. Great men and women influence "a number of people," even after they die. People will take up their mantle and continue the endless work of human progress. By giving new voice to the echoes fading in time, we elevate both ourselves and the person from whom we draw inspiration. Our souls interpenetrate through the broken chains of eternity, and through us, they live once again. ~ Shmuel Pernicone

The spirit of gratitude is always pleasant and satisfying because it carries with it a sense of helpfulness to others; it begets love and friendship, and engenders divine influence. Gratitude is said to be the memory of the heart. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked overnight into that shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion, first ice. It made me remember sakes and conjure a vision of myself skimming backward on one foot, the other extended; the arms become wings. Minnesota girls know that this is not a difficult maneuver if one's limber and practices even a little after school before the boys claim the rink for hockey. I think I can still do it - one thinks many foolish things when November's bright sun skips over the entrancing first freeze.

A flock of sparrows reels through the air looking more like a flying net than seventy conscious birds, a black veil thrown on the wind. When one sparrow dodges, the whole net swerves, dips: one mind. Am I part of anything like that?

Maybe not. The last few years of my life have been characterized by stripping away, one by one, loves and communities that sustain the soul. A young colleague, new to my English department, recently asked me who I hang around with at school. "Nobody," I had to say, feeling briefly ashamed. This solitude is one of the surprises of middle age, especially if one's youth has been rich in love and friendship and children. If you do your job right, children leave home; few communities can stand an individual's most ~ Mary Rose O'Reilley

If you wish your house to be well managed, imitate the Spartan Lycurgus. For as he did not fence his city with walls, but fortified the inhabitants by virtue and preserved the city always free;35 so do you not cast around (your house) a large court and raise high towers, but strengthen the dwellers by good-will and fidelity and friendship, and then nothing harmful will enter it, not even if the whole band of wickedness shall array itself against it. ~ Epictetus

...a library is not just a reference service: it is also a place for the vulnerable. From the elderly gentleman whose only remaining human interaction is with library staff, to the isolated young mother who relishes the support and friendship that grows from a Baby Rhyme Time session, to a slow moving 30-something woman collecting her CDs, libraries are a haven in a world where community services are being ground down to nothing. I've always known libraries are vital, but now I understand that their worth cannot be measured in books alone. ~ Angela Clarke

I love you. I've loved you for longer than I even know. Since before I even knew how to love..."
He shook his head, his eyes smiling even as his expression remained somber.
"I think I've loved you even longer," he whispered back... ~ Caitlin Rush

This self-obsession is a waste of living. It could be spent on surviving things, appreciating nature, nurturing kindness and friendship, and dancing. ~ Tilda Swinton

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers! ~ Walt Whitman

Beauty is undefinable in language. It's something that you see when you see it, or you feel when you feel it, or you hear when you hear it. It usually encompasses all five of the senses. It can't exist without it being a somehow sensorial experience. But, I don't think it's quantifiable. Nothing is really quantifiable. Nothing is certain in love and friendship. We all try to understand these things. ~ Colin Farrell

These people know the reality and laugh at it. Such laughter has little concern with what is funny. It is often bitter and sometimes a little mad, for it is the laugh under the mask of tragedy, and also the laughter that masks tears. They are the same. It is the laughter of people who value love and friendship and plenty, who have lived with terror and death and hate. - , Return to Laughter (1954) ~ Elenore Smith Bowen

As soon as I entered the house, my wife took me in her arms, and kissed me; at which, having not been used to the touch of that odious animal for so many years, I fell into a swoon for almost an hour. At the time I am writing, it is five years since my last return to England. During the first year, I could not endure my wife or children in my presence; the very smell of them was intolerable; much less could I suffer them to eat in the same room. To this hour they dare not presume to touch my bread, or drink out of the same cup, neither was I ever able to let one of them take me by the hand. The first money I laid out was to buy two young stone-horses, which I keep in a good stable; and next to them, the groom is my greatest favourite, for I feel my spirits revived by the smell he contracts in the stable. My horses understand me tolerably well; I converse with them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle; they live in great amity with me and friendship to each other. ~ Jonathan Swift

She is probably by this time as tired of me, as I am of her; but as she is too Polite and I am too civil to say so, our letters are still as frequent and affectionate as ever, and our Attachment as firm and sincere as when it first commenced. ~ Jane Austen

Twenty years of joy and support and friendship, that's a success. Twenty years of anything with another person is a success. If a band stays together twenty years, it's a miracle. If a comedy duo stays together twenty years, they're a triumph. Is this night a failure because it will end in an hour? Is the sun a failure because it's going to end in a billion years? No, it's the fucking sun. Why does a marriage not count? It isn't in us, it isn't in human beings, to be tied to one person forever. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

Loyalty and friendship, which is to me the same, created all the wealth that I've ever thought I'd have. ~ Ernie Banks

There was too much noise. Sirens from police cars and ambulances. Shouts from the crowd on the street eighteen floors below. Traffic from other streets and all of the noises of San Francisco. Mostly, though, there were the voices. Whispering to him. Reminding him of the dark things he had done - all of the little things he had forgotten, all of the big things he had tried to forget. Mostly they reminded him of his biggest secret, a betrayal of trust and friendship long ago. He squeezed his eyes shut as if that could somehow keep the voices away. ~ Don Bassingthwaite

On the relationship side, if you teach people to respond actively and constructively when someone they care about has a victory, it increases love and friendship and decreases the probability of depression. ~ Martin Seligman

I persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues, they would compassionate me, and overlook my personal deformity. Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion and friendship? ~ Mary Shelley

Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other. ~ Oliver Goldsmith

The two most misused words in the entire English vocabulary are love and friendship. A true friend would die for you, so when you start trying to count them on one hand, you don't need any fingers. ~ Larry Flynt

We must choose our personal viewpoint. We can embrace a sense of weighty heaviness that comes from knowing that our fate is one of deterioration and death, and our suffering is interminable. Alternatively, we can choose to believe in the unbearable lightness of our being and embrace a world of high-minded thoughts and ideals. The decisions we make are significant regardless if we only have one life to live. We weave our life story out of the choices that we make when confronted with the inevitable opportunities to experience love and friendship and heartache and suffering. During our life, we encounter goodness and evilness, and hope and despair. We must decide whether we accept reality. Alternatively, do we seek to escape the pain that comes from acknowledging the paucity of human existence? ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Through my willingness to train every day and to dig deep in the after-class ukemi sessions, over time I earned the respect and friendship of my training partners, who were mostly Japanese men sincerely surprised to find themselves training with an American woman. ~ Linda Holiday

To communicate is our chief business; society and friendship our chief delights; and reading, not to acquire knowledge, not to earn a living, but to extend our intercourse beyond our own time and province. ~ Virginia Woolf

Good choice,' Laura Said. 'Our neighbour, Mrs Crabtree, came round this morning and she put it best. Her theory is that fame is like a bubble. It looks gorgeous on the outside, as if it's been painted with pretty colours, but when you pop it there's nothing there. She said that life, love and friendship are what matters, and that what you do is more important than what you show. ~ Lauren St. John

Culture is a window reflecting the history, culture and spiritual world of a nation, .. Cultural exchange is a bridge to enhance the mutual understanding and friendship between the people of different nations. ~ Hu Jintao

Pity and friendship seek different habitations. ~ Helen Hunt

No, that's not the style of these people,' explained Maxy. 'You shouldn't think of these Bolsheviks as modern politicians. They were religious fanatics. Their Marxism was fanatical; their fervour was semi-Islamic; and they saw themselves as members of a secret military-religious order like the medieval Crusaders or the Knights Templar. They were ruthless, amoral and paranoid. They believed that millions would have to die to create their perfect world. Family, love and friendship were nothing compared to the holy grail. People died of gossip at Stalin's court. For a man like Satinov, secrecy was everything. ~ Simon Sebag Montefiore

The difference between friendship and love is how much you can hurt each other. ~ Ashleigh Brilliant

If love and friendship makes you unhappy, try solitude. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

The Scotchman seemed hardly the same Farfrae who had danced with her, and walked with her, in a delicate poise between love and friendship - that period in the history of a love when alone it can be said to be unalloyed with pain. ~ Thomas Hardy

Your friend is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. ~ Khalil Gibran

How much better the world would be if we all gave gifts of understanding, and compassion, of service, and friendship, of kindness and gentleness. ~ Thomas S. Monson

The key to love is to love back. Enthusiastically embrace people who love you. Reciprocate the same level of energy, affection, respect, and attention. ~ Germany Kent

Love and friendship are the only selfless quantities in the cosmos ~ Aditya Bisht

I want you to judge me without thinking about it.
I want you to give me advice without considering my opinion.
I want you to expecting anything without the need to trust me.
I want you to decide for me with all the care in the world.
I want you to help me without smothering me.
I want you to decide without seeing my point of view.
I want you to hug me without holding me...
I want you to feel protected in my presence without me having to lie.
I want you to be close without suffocating me.
I want you to know everything without knowing anything...
I want you to know that both love and friendship should always be Unconditional. ~ Stefan Dimov

She was a source of love and comfort and friendship and companionship and like-mindedness without any of the difficulties of a girlfriend ~ Anthony Kiedis

Peace and friendship are an amiable thing among men. They be so indeed, and we ought to seek them to the uttermost of our power. But yet for all that, we must set such store by God's truth, that if all the world should be set on fire for the maintenance thereof, we should not stick at it. ~ John Calvin

PRE. For your dedication and loyalty to your principles and beliefs. For your love,warmth and friendship. For your family and friends. You are missed by so many and you will never be forgotten. ~ Steve Prefontaine

The real heaven is to live with mature people who believe in love, affection, and friendship; the real hell is to live with immature people who believe in money, power, and sex ~ 'SON Of GOD' P.S.Jagadeesh Kumar

In our weeks of talk, movies and friendship, I watched as Wilma turned a medical ordeal into one more event in her life, but not its definition. I believe she was teaching me an intimate form of The Way. In her words: Every day is a good day - because we are part of everything alive. ~ Gloria Steinem

Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave
Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot;
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
Where long ago a giant battle was;
And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass
In every place where infant Orpheus slept.
Feel we these things? - that moment have we stept
Into a sort of oneness, and our state
Is like a floating spirit's. But there are
Richer entanglements, enthralments far
More self-destroying, leading, by degrees,
To the chief intensity: the crown of these
Is made of love and friendship, and sits high
Upon the forehead of humanity. ~ John Keats

It will give them the opportunity to show themselves worthy of the respect and friendship of peace-loving nations, and in time, to take an honorable place among members of the United Nations. ~ James F. Byrnes

It is impossible to separate:
heat and light,
warmth and fire,
joy and laughter,
bliss and contentment,
pleasure and elation,
euphoria and excitement,
faith and certainty,
pride and destruction,
hope and anticipation,
desire and expection,
love and affection,
passion and devotion,
misery and hatred,
temper and violence,
rage and resentment,
lust and infatuation,
sentiment and opinion,
zeal and ambition,
confidence and conviction,
anger and bitterness,
loyalty and friendship,
joy and laughter,
peace and calmness,
patience and composure,
truth and virtue,
courage and fortitude,
mercy and charity,
service and honor,
need and desire,
life and activity,
being and reality,
and time and eternity. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Forgiveness is that subtle thread that binds both love and friendship. Without forgiveness, you may not even have a child one day. ~ George Foreman

Memories, good and bad, can be used to help us heal if we don't let ourselves be mired down in them. ~ Sarah Jo Smith

My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between words; about the margins, where so many juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a library, you could find miracles and truth and you might find something that would make you laugh so hard that you get shushed, in the friendliest way. ~ Anne Lamott

The point of life isn't to avoid pain. The point of life is to be alive! To feel things. That means the good and the bad. There'll be pain. But also joy, and friendship and love. And it's worth it, believe me. ~ John J. Stephens

Finally, the Program aims, through these means, to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby to increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship. ~ J. William Fulbright

'peace and friendship, in freedom.' ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

When anything is in the presence of evil, but is not as yet evil, the presence of good arouses the desire of good in that thing; but the presence of evil, which makes a thing evil, takes away the desire and friendship of the good; for that which was once both good and evil has now become evil only, and the good has no friendship with evil. ~ Plato

Love and friendship exclude each other. ~ Jean De La Bruyere

On the positive side, a strong sense of comradely loyalty triggers genuine affection and friendship. On the negative side, it may strengthen contempt for the lives of opponents and, of course, the loss of a comrade may be followed by even greater brutality in battle. ~ Nel Noddings

Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you security and friendship and didn't ask for anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly. Love, truth, beauty, wisdom and consolation against death. Who had said that? someone else who loved books. ~ Cornelia Funke

You can never replicate the feelings of a first love, Jesse. The passion, the elation, the sorrow, the pain. When it's the first time, everything is so much more magnified. You feel like it's the end of the world when you're not together. A second love is more subdued. It's more careful, more cautious. But it's still love and when it comes with respect and admiration and friendship, it trumps passion and elation any time. ~ Christine Brae

And here was the moment. The end of it all, for civilization was merely another name for friendship, and friendship was coming to an end. ~ Iain Pears

No plan,' I sighed. The paper bird had flown away without my noticing, and I wondered briefly where it had gone. 'I need faith, Light, and friendship, apparently.'
Pixie dust. Don't forget that. It's very important.
'Shut up,' I said, scratching him behind the ear. ~ Mirriam Neal

Anger and hatred lead to fear; compassion and concern for others allow us to develop self-confidence, which breeds trust and friendship. ~ Dalai Lama

For me, 'Lamb' started out as a further exploration of the phenomenon of faith and the responsibility of a messiah that I touched on in 'Coyote Blue' and 'Island of the Sequined Love Nun,' but it ended up being an exploration of the true meaning of sacrifice, loyalty, and friendship. ~ Christopher Moore

I don't know where life will lead me, but I know where I've been. I can't say what life will show me, but I know what I've seen. Tried my hand at love and friendship, but all that is passed and gone. This little boy is moving on. ~ Jimmy Cliff

What is the most important thing one learns in school? Self-esteem, support, and friendship. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

It is tempting when looking at the life of anyone who has committed suicide to read into the decision to die a vastly complex web of reasons; and, of course, such complexity is warranted. No one illness or event causes suicide; and certainly no one knows all, or perhaps even most, of the motivations behind the killing of the self. But psychopathology is almost always there, and its deadliness is fierce. Love, success, and friendship are not always enough to counter the pain and destructiveness of severe mental illness ~ Kay Redfield Jamison

For Longing

Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

May the forms of your belonging - in love, creativity, and friendship -
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

May your mind inhabit life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you. ~ John O'Donohue

The Way of a Warrior is based on humanity, love, and sincerity; the heart of martial valor is true bravery, wisdom, love, and friendship. Emphasis on the physical aspects of warriorship is futile, for the power of the body is always limited. ~ Morihei Ueshiba

I consider myself to be just one among 7 billion human beings. If I were to think of myself as different from others, or as something special, it would create a barrier between us. What makes us the same is that we all want to lead happy lives and gather friends around us. And friendship is based on trust, honesty and openness. ~ Dalai Lama

I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess ... We found our refuge in science ... We learned that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred. ~ Freeman Dyson

I feel the need of relations and friendship, of affection, of friendly intercourse ... I cannot miss these things without feeling, as does any other intelligent man, a void and a deep need. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

War has been avoided from a due sense of the miseries, and the demoralization it produces, and of the superior blessings of a state of peace and friendship with all mankind. ~ Thomas Jefferson

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

I think closeness to death would be pretty exhilarating in a way, and friendship, yeh, and selflessness, a kind of selflessness, a sense of your own worthlessness, I think, is pretty exhilarating. ~ Sebastian Faulks

No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman. ~ Orson Scott Card

Unsatisfied desire is in itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. ~ C.S. Lewis

People may come and go,lives may change in a instant,but love and friendship will last forever. ~ Elizabeth Sims

Claire understood things about Bay without Bay having to say a word. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

Love and Friendship, when you have them or lose them they are much like the Greek story of Icarus...
You can make you feel like you're soaring above the clouds with happiness when you have them or feel like you are plummeting to the depths of hell with despair when you lose them. ~ Anonymous

Health is the greatest gift in life. Aananda or contentment is the greatest gain and of course faith is the best relationship and friendship in life> Shreeom Surye shiva devkota. ~ Shreeom Surye Shiva Devkota

How much of our literature, our political life, our friendships and love affairs, depend on being able to talk peacefully in a bar! ~ John Wain

Of all the alchemies of human connection-sex and childbirth and marriage and friendship-the strangest is this: You can stand up and tell a story that is made entirely, embarrassingly, of "I's," and a listening audience somehow turns each "I" into a "me." This alchemy, of self-absorption into shared experience, is the alchemy of all literature. ~ Adam Gopnik

And even though we don't have the professional relationship anymore, the love and friendship we have for each other will remain. He is like a father to me and I hope we both keep succeeding in our careers. ~ Gustavo Kuerten

Humility applied to convictions does not mean believing things any less; it means treating those who hold contrary beliefs with respect and friendship. ~ John Dickson

It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to be had on no other terms than leaving her in the full enjoyment of her rights. ~ Benjamin Franklin

A river is the most human and companionable of all inanimate things. It has a life, a character, a voice of its own; and it is as full of good fellowship as a sugar maple is of sap. It can talk in various tones, loud or low, and of many subjects grave and gay ... For real company and friendship there is nothing, outside of the animal kingdom, that is comparable to a river. ~ Henry Van Dyke

After having so nobly disentangled themselves from the shackles of Parental Authority, by a Clandestine Marriage, they were determined never to forfeit the good opinion they had gained in the World, in so doing, by accepting any proposals of reconciliation that might be offered them by their Fathers – to their farther trial of their noble independence however they never were exposed. ~ Jane Austen

I am glad that though someone did me grossly wrong my final mark on this world is not one of countering hurt with more hurt but is one of love and friendship. We will always be known by our actions. Let them always be good ones. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

We are continually being nudged by our devices toward a set of choices. The question is whether those choices are leading us to the life we actually want. I want a life of conversation and friendship, not distraction and entertainment; but every day, many times a day, I'm nudged in the wrong direction. One key part of the art of living faithfully with technology is setting up better nudges for ourselves. ~ Andy Crouch

HeroicPublicSpeaking.com. It was the power of having each other's backs that made this possible and resulted in a long-term business partnership and friendship. At HeroicPublicSpeaking.com, we offer tons of free tips sheets, guides, e-books, and video training on public speaking and on-camera performance techniques for both professionals and laymen alike. So, if you have a wedding toast, a big presentation, a sales pitch, or just want to improve your ability to communicate, head over there now. ~ Anonymous

Living and thinking, for yourself, is not a remarkable life, nor valuable, for humanity. It is an undeclared death of oneself. The life devoted, to others, creates relations and friendship, love, and unity, in societies and its inhabitants to make life colourful. ~ Ehsan Sehgal

True sacrifice is the offering of self so that God can realize the power of creativity, compassion and friendship in and through your life. ~ Keith Ward

Conversation as talent exists only in France. In other countries, conversation provides politeness, discussion, and friendship; in France, it is an art for which imagination and soul are certainly very welcome, but which can also provide its own secret remedies to compensate you for the absence of either or both, if you so desire. ~ Madame De Stael

But if love and friendship are weaknesses, they are basic human weaknesses: by which I mean that they are weaknesses so endemic to our nature that if one seeks, as the Stoics urge, to avoid being subject to them, one is likely to to get oneself into a worse position than one would be in if one simply accepted the weakness in oneself. The tendency towards, the need for, the various affections of love and friendship may be basic weaknesses in this sense because if one attempts to be utterly free of them, one will simply cover up one's needs and feelings and in the process give them free rein for subterranean mischief and eventual destructive effect within one's life. ~ Michael Slote