Friendship is all about loving each other with no strings attached. It’s being there for one another without expecting anything in return.
You can count on them to be there for your during your worst and best moments, and your friends can count on you to do the same. That’s just what true friends practice.
And because the bond of friendship is so beautiful, that means it’s something to be cultivated and nurtured. Also, it means celebrating and being grateful for the incredible connections you have.
So if you want a simple, but sweet way to do just that, then you can use this list of meaningful friendship quotes. They’re a simple way to show your friends how much they mean to you, and that you’ll never take them for granted.
So take a few of these quotes on friendship and send them in a thoughtful text, or even a thank you message for a time they came through for you. They’re such a simple, but kind way to get even closer to that really good friend.
In This Article:
- Inspirational Friendship Quotes to Remind You Why It Matters
- Best Friend Quotes to Celebrate Your BFF
- Short Friendship Quotes That Really Say So Much
- True Friendship Quotes That Get What Meaningful Connection Feels Like
- Meaningful Friendship Quotes That Really Stick With You
- Famous Quotes About Friendship That Will Always Be True
- Funny Friendship Quotes That Are a Little Too Relatable
Inspirational Friendship Quotes to Remind You Why It Matters
- “Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island.” – Baltasar Gracian
- “Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.” – Francesco Guicciardini
- “If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.” – Zig Ziglar
- “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
- “Friendship is the golden thread that ties the hearts of all the world.” – John Evelyn
- “Good friends are there for you even when you’d rather be alone.” – Unknown
- “Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.” – Baltasar Gracian
- “Awards become corroded. Friends gather no dust.” – Jesse Owens
- “Life was meant for good friends and great adventures.” – Anonymous
- “The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” – Abraham Lincoln
- “Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.” – Cicero
- “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” – Woodrow Wilson
- “Anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you.” – Misty Copeland
- “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” – Victor Hugo
- “Having a friend means never being lonely, even when you are alone.” – Anonymous
- “We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.” – Arthur Ashe
- “You’re a friend in this life and whatever is next.” – Unknown
- “The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods.” – Aristotle
- “Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.” – Mark Twain
- “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust
- “A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside.” – Winnie the Pooh
- “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” – Carl Buechner
- “Time doesn’t take away from friendship, nor does separation.” – Tennessee Williams
- “When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.” – Fred Rogers
- “Life is an adventure best shared with a best friend.” – Unknown
- “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
Best Friend Quotes to Celebrate Your BFF
- “My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.” – Aristotle
- “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
- “A best friend is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.” – Irish Proverb
- “It’s not that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but it’s your best friends who are your diamonds.” – Gina Barreca
- “It’s not over. It’s never over. BFF. I love you. Forever.” – Parks and Recreation
- “A good friend knows all your best stories, but a best friend has lived them with you.” – Unknown
- “A true best friend may get you into trouble, but they will always be there to pull you out of it too.” – Kaylee Stepkoski
- “Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.” – Sarah Dessen
- “Sometimes being with your best friend is all the therapy you need.” – Anonymous
- “A best friend is a soulmate, as much as a lover is a friend.” – Unknown
- “A best friend tells you when you’re not being yourself.” – Unknown
- “Things are never quite as scary when you’ve got a best friend.” – Bill Watterson
- “A best friend is a partner for life.” – Unknown
- “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.” – Edna Buchanan
- “Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.” – G. Randolf
- “There’s nothing like a really loyal, dependable, good friend. Nothing.” – Jennifer Aniston
- “I would rather walk with a friend in the dark than alone in the light.” – Helen Keller
- “It is the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” – Marlene Dietrich
- “A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.” – Unknown
- “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.” – James Boswell
- “Everyone needs a friend they can call and wake up in the middle of the night.” – Parks and Recreation
- “A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.” – Donna Roberts
- “Love is missing someone whenever you’re apart, but somehow feeling warm inside because you’re close in heart.” – Kay Knudsen
- “Friendship isn’t about whom you have known the longest… it’s about who came, and never left your side.” – Mikaela Tiu
- “Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.” – Shakespeare
- “There are friends, there is family and then there are friends that become family.” – Edna Buchanan
- “A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.” – Elbert Hubbard
Short Friendship Quotes That Really Say So Much
- “A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Friendship’s the wine of life.” – Edward Young
- “Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?” – Jane Austen
- “Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
- “A single rose can be my garden … a single friend, my world.” – Leo Buscaglia
- “Friendship is just another word for love.” – Unknown
- “Friends are the siblings God never gave us.” – Mencius
- “There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.” – Jim Henson
- “The best mirror is an old friend.” – George Herbert
- “Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place.” – Frank Herbert
- “A friend is what the heart needs all the time.” – Dick Van Dyke
- “Life is nothing without friendship.” – Cicero
- “A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” – Elbert Hubbard
- “Friendship is the sweetest influence.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “We were together. I forget the rest.” – Walt Whitman
- “A friend is a gift you give yourself.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
- “A good friend reminds you of your brilliance.” – Olivia Wilde
- “No friendship is an accident.” – O. Henry
- “Being a friend to yourself helps you be a friend to others.” – Unknown
- “To have a friend is to have someone to take the wheel.” – Unknown
- “One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.” – Euripides
- “Friendship isn’t a big thing-it’s a million little things.” – Paulo Coelho
- “If you have a sibling, you have a friend from the beginning.” – Anonymous
- “A good friend will always stab you in the front.” – Oscar Wilde
- “Those without friends are nearly without selves.” – Unknown
- “There’s no friends like the old friends.” – James Joyce
- “Marriage: a friendship recognized by the police.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
- “A true friend is the greatest of all blessings.” – François de La Rochefoucauld
True Friendship Quotes That Get What Meaningful Connection Feels Like
- “True friendship resists time, distance and silence.” – Isabel Allende
- “There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature.” – Jane Austen
- “Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.” – Jean de La Fontaine
- “Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing…” – Octavia Butler
- “True friendship is a plant of slow growth.” – George Washington
- “A friend can tell you things you don’t want to tell yourself.” – Frances Ward Weller
- “Maybe what matters is not so much the path as who walks beside you.” – Stacey Lee
- “Some people arrive and make such a beautiful impact on your life, you can barely remember what life was like without them.” – Anna Taylor
- “True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.” – Charles Caleb Colton
- “True friends are always together in spirit.” – L.M. Montgomery
- “Remember that life’s most valuable antiques are dear old friends.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
- “Friendship is watching TV in silence and not needing to say a word.” – Unknown
- “True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.” – David Tyson
- “The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” – Elisabeth Foley
- “One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
- “Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends leave footprints in your heart.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
- “A true friend accepts who you are, but also helps you become who you should be.” – Unknown
- “There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” – St. Thomas Aquinas
- “A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” – Bernard Meltzer
- “True friendship is when you go months or years without seeing each other and nothing changes.” – Unknown
- “My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you’re most ashamed of.” – Jodie Foster
- “A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.” – William Arthur Ward
- “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” – Walter Winchell
- “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.” – Unknown
- “When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can’t have too many friends because then you’re just not really friends.” – Truman Capote
- “A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.” – L.R. Jones
- “My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.” – George R.R. Martin
- “True friends are like diamonds—bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style.” – Nicole Richie
- “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
- “Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.” – Sicilian Proverb
- “Each new friendship can make you a new person, because it opens up new doors inside of you.” – Kate DiCamillo
Meaningful Friendship Quotes That Really Stick With You
- “Keep the ones that heard you when you never said a word.” – Jon York
- “My friends are my estate. Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them. They tell me those who were poor early have different views of gold…” – Emily Dickinson
- “Friendship is the sweetest influence.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “I have no duty to be anyone’s Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” – C.S. Lewis
- “Because of you, I laugh a little harder, cry a little less, and smile a lot more.” – Unknown
- “Friendship is a sheltering tree.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- “Not for ourselves alone are we born.” – Cicero
- “The best time to make friends is before you need them.” – Ethel Barrymore
- “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
- “I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.” – Katherine Mansfield
- “In the sweetness of friendship, let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures.” – Kahlil Gibran
- “There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.” – Charlotte Brontë
- “To like and dislike the same things, that is what makes a solid friendship.” – Sallust
- “Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.” – Herman Melville
- “Every new friend is a new adventure… the start of more memories.” – Patrick Lindsay
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “Friendship without self-interest is one of the rare and beautiful things of life.” – James F. Byrnes
- “A friend is someone you want to be around when you feel like being alone.” – Barbara Burrow
- “The most memorable people in life will be the friends who loved you when you weren’t very lovable.” – Aidan Chambers
- “The great thing about new friends is that they bring new energy to your soul.” – Shanna Rodriguez
- “The language of friendship is not words but meanings.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “Friends are as companions on a journey, who ought to aid each other to persevere in the road to a happier life.” – Pythagoras
- “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
- “No road is long with good company.” – Turkish Proverb
- “The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship.” – Joseph Addison
- “Of all possessions, a friend is the most precious.” – Herodotus
- “Silence makes the real conversations between friends. Not the saying, but the never needing to say that counts.” – Margaret Lee Runbeck
Famous Quotes About Friendship That Will Always Be True
- “A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.” – Maya Angelou
- “I don’t have friends, I have family.” – Dominic Toretto
- “Women’s friendships are like a renewable source of power.” – Jane Fonda
- “Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.” – Ed Cunningham
- “Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.” – Socrates
- “Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses… swapped back and forth and over again.” – Michelle Obama
- “The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.” – Hubert H. Humphrey
- “I don’t know what I would have done so many times in my life if I hadn’t had my girlfriends.” – Reese Witherspoon
- “It seems they had always been, and always would be, friends. Time could change, but not that.” – Winnie the Pooh
- “Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.” – Samuel Butler
- “Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves.” – Vincent Van Gogh
- “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson
- “Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person… a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.” – Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
- “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” – Aristotle
- “Elmo thinks it’s important to be kind because if you’re kind to somebody, then they’ll be kind to somebody, and it goes on and on and on.” – Elmo
- “Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.” – Richard Bach
- “The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “With every friend I love who has been taken into the brown bosom of the earth a part of me has been buried there; but their contribution to my being of happiness, strength, and understanding remains to sustain me in an altered world.” – Helen Keller
- “Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “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
- “My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges.” – Helen Keller
- “A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.” – Aristotle
- “It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.” – Confucius
- “Friends…they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love—whether we call it friendship or family or romance—is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.” – James Baldwin
Funny Friendship Quotes That Are a Little Too Relatable
- “There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.” – P.G. Wodehouse
- “If you have crazy friends, you have everything you’ll ever need.” – Unknown
- “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. Glasow
- “Only among people of good can friendship exist, since the perverse people only have accomplices, the interested people have partners, the political people have supporters, the people of royalty have courtiers, only good people have friends.” – Voltaire
- “You find out who your real friends are when you’re involved in a scandal.” – Elizabeth Taylor
- “The only true currency in this bankrupt world are the moments you share with someone when you’re uncool.” – Cameron Crowe
- “Most of us don’t need a psychiatric therapist as much as a friend to be silly with.” – Robert Brault
- “There’s nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.” – Linda Grayson
- “She’s my friend because we both know what it’s like to have people be jealous of us.” – Cher, Clueless
- “Friend is someone to share the last cookie with.” – Cookie Monster
- “‘Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.” – Charles Lamb
- “If you are ever lucky enough to find a weirdo, never let them go.” – Matthew Gray Gubler
- “In the cookie of life friends are the chocolate chips.” – Salman Rushdie
- “Friends may not make the world go around, but they sure make it go a lot more fun!” – Unknown
- “One sure way to lose another woman’s friendship is to try to improve her flower arrangements.” – Marcelene Cox
- “My friends and I are crazy. That’s the only thing that keeps us sane.” – Matt Schucker
- “You’re mad. Bonkers. Off your head. But I’ll tell you a secret: Some of the best people are.” — Alice, Alice in Wonderland
- “The one absolute, unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world—the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous—is his dog.” – George Graham Vest
- “I’d walk through fire for my best friend. Well, not fire, because that would be dangerous. But a super humid room. But not too humid, because you know… sweaty.” – Unknown
- “You and I are more than friends, we’re like a really small gang.” – Anonymous
- “We have to remember what’s important in life: friends, waffles, and work. Or waffles, friends, work. But work has to come third.” – Parks and Recreation
- “When you’re in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you-” – Groucho Marx
- “Friends buy you food. Best friends eat your food.” – Anonymous
- “You can always tell when two people are best friends because they’re always having way more fun than it makes sense for them to be having.” – Unknown
- “We’ll be best friends forever because you already know too much.” – Unknown
- “We’ll be the old ladies causing trouble in the nursing home.” – Anonymous
- “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.
- “Best friends don’t judge each other. They’re just as weird as you are.” – Unknown
- “I’m glad we’re friends. I wouldn’t want to be related to you.” – Unknown
These friends quotes are such a great way to get closer to your best friend, and show them that you’re thinking of them.
It’s so good to appreciate and celebrate the good people you already have in your life, so go ahead and send a few of these friendship wishes and make there day even better.
Grace Moser is the author and founder of Chasing Foxes, where she writes articles to help women create a life they love in big and small ways. She's been a full-time traveler since 2016 and loves sharing her experiences and exploring the world with her husband, Silas. Her lifestyle and travel advice can also be seen on sites such as Business Insider, Glamour, Newsweek, Huffpost, & Apartment Therapy.