Quotes About Genuine Friends

“Persons under the shock of genuine affliction are not only upset mentally but are all unbalanced physically. No matter how calm and controlled they seemingly may be, no one can under such circumstances be normal. Their disturbed circulation makes them cold, their distress makes them unstrung, sleepless. Persons they normally like, they often turn from. No one should ever be forced upon those in grief, and all over-emotional people, no matter how near or dear, should be barred absolutely. Although the knowledge that their friends love them and sorrow for them is a great solace, the nearest afflicted must be protected from any one or anything which is likely to overstrain nerves already at the threatening point, and none have the right to feel hurt if they are told they can neither be of use or be received. At such a time, to some people companionship is a comfort, others shrink from their dearest friends.”

— Emily Post

“A friend is more to be longed for than the light; I speak of a genuine one. And wonder not: for it were better for us that the sun should be extinguished, than that we should be deprived of friends; better to live in darkness, than to be without friends”

— John Chrysostom

“Hana yori dango. Dumplings over flowers. It basically means that someone should value needs over wants, substance over appearance. As in, make sure you have food and shelter before you burn money on something extravagant. And, you know, choose genuine friends who will be there for you over pretty, shallow ones. Don't get carried away by beauty if it leaves you empty.”

— Amanda Sun

“There are friends one makes at a youthful age in whom one simply rejoices, for whom one possesses a love and loyalty mysteriously lacking in the friendships made in after-years, no matter how genuine.”

— William Styron

“I shrugged uncomfortably, leaning my head against hers, almost forgetting Mr. Gardner's presence as Mo and I fell into that sort of exclusionary, near-telepathic best-friends communion. She knew that I would argue that I wasn't ashamed, but that I hadn't quite figured out how to truly mean it when I held my head up high. My entire life, people had been telling me to keep it down and stop being an embarrassment. So, I was still in that "fake it 'til you make it" stage, hoping genuine pride would come if I pretended confidence long enough. For now, I was relying on bravado and a complete lack of give-a-fuck to carry me through.”

— Amelia C. Gormley

“Friendship is genuine when two friends can enjoy each others company without speaking a word to one another.”

— George Ebers

“When we see love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth, revealed through acts of care, respect, knowing, and assuming responsibility, the foundation of all love in our life is the same. There is no special love exclusively reserved for romantic partners. Genuine love is the foundation of our engagement with ourselves, with family, with friends, with partners, with everyone we choose to love.”

— Bell Hooks

“Trust is the heartbeat of genuine love. And we trust that the attention our partners give friends, or vice versa, does not take anything away from us - we are not diminished. What we learn through experience is that our capacity to establish deep and profound connections in friendship strengthens all our intimate bonds.”

— Bell Hooks

“Friendship is a sacred thing and I do not extend the word lightly. I've had long-term romances in my life but few genuine friendships. I am exceedingly picky about who I let in my inner circle and because of that I have a few friends and many acquaintances.”

— Donna Lynn Hope

“When we're in that kind of childish space, we're more genuine and feel more comfortable with our friends.”

— Evan Spiegel

“Wisdom-seems to the rabble a kind of escape, a means and a trick for getting well out of a wicked game. But the genuine philosopher-as it seems to us, my friends?-lives 'unphilosophically' and 'unwisely,' above all imprudently, and feels the burden and the duty of a hundred attempts and temptations of life-he risks himself constantly, he plays the wicked game.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

“Showing a genuine interest in others not only wins friends for you, but may develop in its customers a loyalty to your company.”

— Anonymous.

“We could all take heart. These are the wise ones who sit in front of us, to whom we prostrate when we do prostrations. We can prostrate to them as an example of our own wisdom mind of enlightened beings, but perhaps it's also good to prostrate to them as confused, mixed-up people with a lot of neurosis, just like ourselves. They are good examples of people who never gave up on themselves and were not afraid to be themselves, who therefore found their own genuine quality and their own true nature. The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It's who we are right now, and that's what we can make friends with and celebrate.”

— Deirdre Blomfield Brown

“It was funny, what friendship meant in Rebecca's world. It mainly meant lunch, twice a year, and the occasional dinner party, except for Dorothea, who was an old school friend, a genuine friend. Rebecca had realized, ruefully, that she should have made more friends in school; they seemed to be the only ones women really talked to honestly because the shared history meant fewer lies were available to them. With the others shared meals had become a substitute for intimacy, but not the kind of substitute that allowed for dark nights of the soul, calls at 1:00 A.M., tears and drinking and despair in pajamas.”

— Anna Quindlen

“I'm genuine and I'm available. I want people to be at their best. I want them to love and be loved to their fullest ability. My friends call me their relationship nanny, so we have a good time working through problems. Now, I don't claim to be an expert, but I am a woman who has been through everything.”

— Niecy Nash

“Some comics are in it for what they can get out of it. Others are in it for a love of comedy. I think those that are in it for a genuine love of comedy find each other within the circuit and become friends.”

— Johnny Vegas

“I get most of my inspiration from two places: my own life, and reading. I read widely-in my genre (romance), and in all sorts of different genres, from urban fantasy to literature. Then there's your own life. Romance is a fantasy genre, but if the rock core of your characters doesn't come from your own life, from emotions you know intimately, the book won't fly. I don't mean you have to be married to Casanova-I mean that a heroine will feel genuine to readers if she shares some of your fears or triumphs. Craft the emotional part of the plot from truths you learned from your own life, from watching your friends' lives, or from reading books.”

— Eloisa James

“I think people should be who they are. If someone is a great mother, or a great personal friend to their friends and just a loving person, that's all they should be, if that's what they want to be, 'cause it's genuine.”

— Teresa Heinz

“Will protect you from your suffering. You can't cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It's just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal. Therapists and friends can help you along the way, but the healing-the genuine healing, the actual real-deal, down-on-your-knees-in-the-mud change-is entirely and absolutely up to you.”

— Cheryl Strayed

“I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies. They are better company and their feelings towards you are always genuine.”

— Dylan Thomas

“The most you can do is stand up for what you believe in. I'm much happier since coming out to my friends and family. Being genuine and honest makes me happy.”

— Jason Collins

“We all have families who are longing for peace in the world and an end to the suffering caused by poverty, disease, and hunger. Untold numbers of our friends, our neighbors, our parents, and our children, are hoping that there is more understanding, more generosity, more genuine friendship, and more caring among people of all faiths and cultures.”

— John Conyers

“Leading fosters a working atmosphere that stimulates an open exchange of ideas and fosters dissent. People should show a genuine concern for one another and treat one another with fairness, as peers and friends. With such an atmosphere it should be a pleasure to come to work.”

— Marvin Bower

“It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a missions project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream and struggle.”

— Shane Claiborne

“Age simply doesn't enter into it! The older the friend, the more he is valued, particularly when he shows so visibly the characteristics that we all look for in friends. You have only to look at a genuine teddy's face to see at once the loyalty, common sense, and above all, dependability behind it.”

— Peter Bull

“Turning your nose up at a genuine and sincere gesture of hospitality is no way to travel or to make friends around the world.”

— Anthony Bourdain

“There is more genuine joy in climbing the hill of success, even though sweat may be spent and toes may be stubbed, than in aimlessly sliding down the path to failure. If a straight, honorable path has been chosen, the gaining of the summit yields lasting satisfaction. The morass of failure, if reached through laziness, indifference or other avoidable fault, yields nothing but ignominy and sorrow for self and family and friends.”

— B.C. Forbes

“We're all friends, inside the music and outside the music. I mean, we don't sound anything alike, we don't approach our music anything alike, but we come from the same genuine place. We want our music to be real and we don't want to compromise our art.”

— Erykah Badu

“In proportion to the love existing among men, so will be the community of property and power. Among true and real friends, all is common; and, were ignorance and envy and superstition banished from the world, all mankind would be friends. The only perfect and genuine republic is that which comprehends every living being. Those distinctions which have been artificially set up, of nations, societies, families, and religions, are only general names, expressing the abhorrence and contempt with which men blindly consider their fellowmen.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.”

— Vincent Van Gogh

“I definitely have some colleagues that I respect, and we get together from time to time. But I actually have just like genuine friends.”

— Quentin Tarantino

“It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: First and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.”

— William J. Clinton

“Friends, genuine friends, have much more to do with whether we have a warm heart, not money or power.”

— Dalai Lama

“A compassionate attitude helps you communicate more easily with your fellow human beings. As a result, you make more genuine friends and the atmosphere around you is more positive, which gives you greater inner strength. This inner strength helps you spontaneously concern yourself with others, instead of thinking only about yourself.”

— Dalai Lama

“Friends, genuine friends, are attracted by a warm heart, not money, not power. A genuine friend considers you as just another human being, as a brother or sister, and shows affection on that level, regardless of whether you are rich or poor, or in a high position; that is a genuine friend.”

— Dalai Lama

“Loving one another isn't enough to make a relationship last. The real glue that holds a couple (or friends or family) together is the effort both put into helping others who are in need of financial, health, personal or emotional assistance. Today, sustain your connection to a loved one by finding ways you both can help others, with a genuine heart.”

— Yehuda Berg

“True friends share genuine closeness and remain friends irrespective of fluctuating fortunes.”

— Dalai Lama

“Friendship is only friendship when it is real. Passionate and relentless. Forgiving and joyful. Don't forget today to have real moments with your friends. Not a text, or a tweet, an Instagram
that's all deceit. Hold real hands, kiss genuine lips, be a truly strong human force.”

— Lady Gaga