Inspirational old friends quotes will make you look at life differently and help you live a meaningful life.
Powerful Collection of Most Famous Old Friends Quotes
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
New friends may be poems but old friends are alphabets. Don’t forget the alphabets because you will need them to read the poems. – William Shakespeare
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Remember that the most valuable antiques are dear old friends. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
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
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. – Henry David Thoreau
A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you. – Elbert Hubbard
Ten minutes with a genuine friend is better than years spent with anyone less. – Crystal Woods
Lay this unto your breast: Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best. – John Webster
Remember that the most valuable antiques are dear old friends. – H. Jackson Brown
Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend. – Sarah Dessen
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. … It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival. – C. S. Lewis
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
I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light. – Helen Keller
An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost. – Samuel Johnson
Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget. – G. Randolf
If you have two friends in your lifetime, you’re lucky. If you have one good friend, you’re more than lucky. – S. E. Hinton
Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side. – Ally Condie
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. – Francis Bacon
You don’t have to have anything in common with people you’ve known since you were five. With old friends, you’ve got your whole life in common. – Lyle Lovett
Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected. – Charles Lamb
The best mirror is an old friend. – George Herbet
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
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
There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise. – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr
It’s an insane world but in it there is one sanity, the loyalty of old friends. – Ben Hur
It’s best to have an old friend far away, than a new friend nearby that makes you question your care. – Shanna Rodriguez
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit. – Aristotle
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
In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends. – John Churton Collins
A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. – Walter Winchell
True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable. – David Tyson
Whoever neglects old friends for the sake of new deserves what he gets if he loses both. – Aesop
When we forget old friends, it is a sign we have forgotten ourselves. – William Hazlitt
Say what you want about aging, it’s still the only way to have old friends. – Robert Brault
Beautiful memories are like old friends. They may not always be on your mind, but they are forever in your heart. – Susan Gale
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
There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met. – Jim Henson
It’s not good trying to keep up old friendships. It’s painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of peple, and the only thing is to face it. – W. Somerset Maughan
An old friend met in a far country is like rain after a drought. – Chinese Proverb
Spend a new penny on an old friend and share an old pleasure with a new friend. – Chinese Proverb
Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend. – G.K. Chesterton
There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul. – Edith Wharton
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success. – Oscar Wilde
There’s a thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die-their silence. For a while an echo stays in your ear. You hear a laugh, a knowing phrase or two, a certain quality of enunciation. Then, nothing. Another death takes place-voices. – Ben Hecht
Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air; love them for what they are; nor love them less, because to thee they are not what they were. – Samuel Coleridge Taylor
Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best. – Duchess of Malfy
Old friends and old wine are best. – German Proverb
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
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. – Martin Luther King Jr.
Once a friend, always a friend. – Kurdish Proverb
My old friend, I recall the times we had hanging on my wall. I wouldn’t trade them for gold ’cause they laugh and they cry me, somehow sanctify me. They’re woven in the stories I have told and tell again. – Tim McGraw
The best mirror is an old friend. – George Herbert
Make new friends, but don’t forget the old, One is silver, the other is gold. – unknown
You don’t have to have anything in common with people you’ve known since you were five. With old friends, you’ve got your whole life in common. – Lyle Lovett
Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him. A new friend is a new wine; when if is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure. – Bible
A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world. – Leo Buscaglia
Some people go to priests, others to poetry, I to my friends. – Virginia Woolf
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
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
Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up. – Thomas J. Watson
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
A good friend is a connection to life – a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. – Lois Wyse
With clothes the new are the best, with friends the old are the best. – unknown
It takes a long time to grow an old friend. – John Leonard
There’s not a word yet, for old friends who’ve just met. – Jim Henson
Old friends are the great blessing of one’s later years . . . They have a memory of the same events and have the same mode of thinking. – Horace Walpole
Old friends, we say, are best, when some sudden disillusionment shakes our faith in a new comrade. – Gelett Burgess
A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down. – Arnold H. Glasgow
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
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
Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Yes’m, old friends is always best, ‘less you can catch a new one that’s fit to make an old one out of. – Sarah Orne Jewett
Tell me, why are the old friends kind, And ever the tenderest, too? Youth has no art, but an open mind, And its love is sincere and true. – Edwin Leibfreed
To be with old friends is very warming and comforting. – Ian Ziering
Old friends die on you, and they’re irreplaceable. You become dependent. – Lionel Blue
We need old friends to help us grow old and new friends to help us stay young. – Letty Cottin Pogrebin
As in the case of wines that improve with age, the oldest friendships ought to be the most delightful. – Cicero
A friend can tell you things you don’t want to tell yourself. – Frances Ward Weller
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. – Laurence J. Petereval
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow. – Alice Walker
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together. – Woodrow T. Wilson
Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. – Ed Cunningham
There is only one thing better than making a new friend, and that is keeping an old one. – Elmer G. Letterman
Old stories are like old friends? You have to visit them from time to time. – George R.R. Martin
Finding an old friend is like finding a lost treasure. – Anthony Douglas Williams
There’s no friends like the old friends. – James Joyce
To reminisce with my old friends, a chance to share some memories, and play our songs again. – Ricky Nelson
How unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears our old friends! – George Eliot
We must never sell old friends to buy old enemies. – Abraham Lincoln
Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends. – Mary Catherwood
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. – Marcel Proust
The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. – Elisabeth Foley
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
A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence; which costs us nothing. – John Tillotson
A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked. – Bernard Meltzer
Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way. – Charles Kingsley
A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails. – Donna Roberts
The best time to make friends is before you need them. – Ethel Barrymore
One old friend is better than two new ones. – Yiddish Proverb
No one leaves an old friend unless they are ashamed. – Julian Casablancas
You can make a new friend but you can’t make an old one. – Tom Bodett
Old friends and old ways ought not to be disdained. – Danish Proverb
Condiments are like old friends — highly thought of, but often taken for granted. – Marilyn Kaytor
Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offenses. – Robert Burton
It’s less the words they say than those they leave unsaid that split old friends apart. – Frederick Buechner
You can’t make old friends. You either have them or you don’t. – Kenny Rogers
Exercise is like an old friend: You may not be able to see that friend all the time, but you’re not mad when you see them, you’re happy, and you get right back into it. – Bethenny Frankel
When old friends get together, everything else fades to insignificance. – Robert Lynn Aspri
Old friends are best. – John Selden
…or like an old friend one has known too well and doesn’t want to see. – Doris Lessing
In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, for in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. – Khalil Gibran
The language of friendship is not words but meanings. – Henry David Thoreau
Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart. – Eleanor Roosevelt
Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives and remembering what one receives. – Alexander Dumas
An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind. – Buddha
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. – Octavia Butler
Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes. – Friedrich Nietzsche
There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you. – Paramahansa Yogananda
I think if I’ve learned anything about friendship, it’s to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don’t walk away, don’t be distracted, don’t be too busy or tired, don’t take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff. – John Katz
I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar. – Robert Brault
We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. – Ray Bradbury
A friendship that can end never really began. – Publilius Syrus
It takes a long time to grow an old friend. – John Leonard
Every friendship travels at sometime through the black valley of despair. This tests every aspect of your affection. You lose the attraction and the magic. – John O’Donohue
Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief. – Marcus Tullius Cicero
They make me stronger; they make me braver. – Jane Fonda
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. – Khalil Gibran
Friends are the siblings God never gave us. – Mencius
Remember that the most valuable antiques are dear old friends. – H. Jackson Brown
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
A friend is a gift you give yourself. – Robert Louis Stevenson
True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance. – Henry David Thoreau
No friendship is an accident. – O. Henry
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost. – Charles Caleb Colton
Friendship is the purest love. – Osho
Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship. – Dorothy Parker
True friendship is never serene. – Marquise de Sevigne
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself – and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is. – Jim Morrison
Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose. – Tennessee Williams
Friends should be like books, few, but hand-selected. – C.J. Langenhoven
A friend is someone who makes it easy to believe in yourself. – Heidi Wills
Some people arrive and make such a beautiful impact on your life, you can barely remember what life was like without them. – Anna Taylor
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends. – Walt Whitman
There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate. – Linda Grayson
Fate chooses your relations, you choose your friends. – Jacques Delille
A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship. – Markus Zusak
Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
If you have two friends in your lifetime, you’re lucky. If you have one good friend, you’re more than lucky. – S.E. Hinton
The great thing about new friends is that they bring new energy to your soul. – Shanna Rodriguez
Friends: people who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them. – Edwin Arlington Robinson
True friends don’t judge each other, they judge other people together. – Emilie Saint-Genis
A friend to all is a friend to none. – Aristotle
Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies. – Richelle Mead
Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend. – Sarah Desse
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept. – Samuel Butler
Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life-and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next. – Dean Koontz
If you can survive 11 days in cramped quarters with a friend and come out laughing, your friendship is the real deal. – Oprah Winfrey
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
No matter how tired I am, I get dinner at least once a week with my girlfriends. Or have a sleepover. Otherwise my life is just all work. – Jennifer Lawrence
It’s the friends you can call up at 4am that matter. – Marlene Dietrich
Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation. – Oscar Wilde
One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about. – Mindy Kaling
I think about my best friendship – which the Marnie-Hannah friendship in Girls is based on – as like a great romance of my young life. – Lena Dunham
A true friend stabs you in the front. – Oscar Wilde
We come from homes far from perfect, so you end up almost parent and sibling to your friends – your own chosen family. There’s nothing like a really loyal, dependable, good friend. Nothing. – Jennifer Aniston
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me. – Henry Ford
The best way to mend a broken heart is time and girlfriends. – Gwyneth Paltrow
You find out who your real friends are when you’re involved in a scandal. – Elizabeth Taylor
I don’t know what I would have done so many times in my life if I hadn’t had my girlfriends. – Reese Witherspoon
Some souls just understand each other upon meeting. – N. R. Hart
Don’t be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends. – Richard Bach
In a friend you find a second self. – Isabelle Norton
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. – Aristotle
Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God’s greatest gifts. It involves many things, but above all the power of going out of one’s self and appreciating what is noble and loving in another. – Thomas Hughes
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing. – Elie Wiesel
Where there are friends, there is wealth. – Titus Maccius Plautus
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm & constant. – Socrates
The only good thing about times of adversity is that you realize who your real friends and fans are – and the rest go away – which in my mind is an OK thing. – Pete Wentz
A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be. – Douglas Pagels
Things are never quite as scary when you have a best friend. – Bill Watterson
I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let’s face it, friends make life a lot more fun. – Charles R. Swindoll
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. – Henri Nouwen
One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people. – John O’Donohue
Do not save your loving speeches for your friends till they are dead; do not write them on their tombstones, speak them rather now instead. – Anna Cummins
