Francis Bacon Friend Quotations

Those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.

But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness.

For friends... do but look upon good Books: they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble.

We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.

Nothing opens the heart like a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes...and whatever lies upon the heart....

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

Friends are thieves of time.

Without friends the world is but a wilderness.

Nuptial love makes mankind; friendly love perfects it; but wanton love corrupts and debases it.

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.

For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.

The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.

Friendship redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.

Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.

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.

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.

The worst solitute is to be destitute of true friendship.

A man cannot speak to his son but as a father, to his wife but as a husband, to his enemy but upon terms; whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.

The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.