One friend in a lifetime ismuch; two are many; three are hardly possible.Friendship needs a certainparallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

-Adams, Henry Brooks
  The Education of Henry  Adams, ch.20.

There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.48,'Of Followers and Friends'.

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their familyöbut to a solitaryand an exile his friends are everything.

-Cather,Willa Sibert
Shadows On The Rock, bk.3, ch.5.

Idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est. Agreements in likes and dislikesöthis, and only this is what constitutes true friendship.

-Catiline full name Lucius Sergius Catilina
Quoted in Sallust De Catilinae coniuratione, bk.20, pt.4 (translated by J C Rolfe).

What is the odds so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a feather!

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^1  Dick Swiveller. The Old Curiosity Shop, ch.2.

Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^1  Dick Swiveller. The Old Curiosity Shop, ch.7.

My whole life Has been a golden dream of love and friendship.

-Dryden,John
  All for Love, or The World Well Lost, act 5.

In friendship false, implacable in hate: Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.

-Dryden,John
Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.173^4.

A woman's friendship ever ends in love.

-Gay,John
  Dione, act 4, sc.6.

I was the last to consent to the separation, but the separation having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.

-George III
  Letter to  John  Adams, first US  Ambassador to England, 1  Jun.

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.

-Goldsmith, Oliver
  The Good-Natured Man, act1.

Gold schenkt die Eitelkeit, der rauhe Stolz, Die Freundschaft und die Liebe schenken Blumen. Gold is the gift of vanityand pride, Friendship and love offer flowers.

-Grillparzer, Franz
  Sappho, act 2, sc.4.

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.

-Hazlitt,William
  The Plain Speaker,'On the Pleasure of Hating'.

If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

Always,Sir, set a highvalue onspontaneouskindness.He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attract to you.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark, May. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.4.

A certain sort of friendship soon arose between the Fans and me.We each recognized that we belonged to that same section of thehumanrace with whom it isbetter to drink than to fight.We knew we would each have killed the other, if sufficient inducement were offered, and so we took a certain amount of care that the inducement should not arise.

-Kingsley, Mary Henrietta
  Travels in West  Africa (published1899).

Le temps, qui fortifie les amitie¤  s, affaiblit l'amour. Time, which strengthens friendships, weakens love.

-La Bruye'  re,Jean de
  Les Caracte'  res ou les m½urs de ce sie'  cle,'Du c½ur', no.4.

L'amour et l'amitie¤   s'excluent l'un l'autre. Love and friendship exclude one another.

-La Bruye'  re,Jean de
  Les Caracte'  res ou les m½urs de ce sie'  cle,'Du c½ur', no.7.

La haine est toujours plus clairvoyante et plus inge¤  nieuse que l'amitie¤  . Hate is always more clairvoyant and ingenious than friendship.

-Laclos, Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de
  Les Liaisons dangereuses, letter113.

If the husband be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage,öif you did not come inonthewife'sside,öif youdid not sneak intothehouse in her train, but were an old friend in first habits of intimacy before their courtship was so much as thought on,ölook about you† Every long friendship, every old authentic intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with their currency, as a sovereign Prince calls in the good old money that was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will let it pass current in the world.

-Lamb, Charles
  Essays of Elia,'A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People'.