"What is commonly honored with the name..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau
What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do not, after all, love their Friends greatly. I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other's presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man.
More by Henry David Thoreau
“What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.”
“It is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time.”
“Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.”
More on Friendship
“Ladies and gentlemen are permitted to have friends in the kennel, but not in the kitchen.”
“We must love our friend so much that she shall be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts alone.”
“All men, or most men, wish what is noble but choose what is profitable; and while it is noble to render a service not with an eye to receiving one in return, it is profitable to receive one. One ought therefore, if one can, to return the equivalent of services received, and to do so willingly; for one ought not to make a man one's friend if one is unwilling to return his favors.”
More on Love
“It is easy to love people when they smell good, but sometimes they slip into the manure of life and smell awful. You must love them just as much when they smell foul.”
“Love comes with hunger.”
“No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.”