The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American essayist and lecturer, and the central figure of Transcendentalism. He left the ministry to write and speak publicly, and his essays Nature and Self-Reliance laid the groundwork for American thinking about the individual and their relation to society.
About this theme: Friendship
Aristotle gave friendship two books of the Nicomachean Ethics, more than he gave justice, and distinguished three kinds: friendship for use, for pleasure, and for the friend's own sake. The first two last as long as the reason lasts; the third is rare and slow, and the only one he considered complete.
More by Ralph Waldo Emerson
More on Friendship
- No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.— Charles Dickens
- A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.— Elbert Hubbard
- Associate with people who are likely to improve you.— Seneca
- A friend is, as it were, a second self.— Cicero
- If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.— Booker T. Washington