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Robert Christy, comp. Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages. 1887.

Friend

A clear bargain, a dear friend.Italian.

A courageous is better than a cowardly friend.

A fair weather friend changes with the wind.Spanish, Portuguese.

A faithful friend is the true image of the deity.Napoleon.

A false friend and a shadow attend only when the sun shines.Franklin.

A false friend has honey in his mouth, gall in his heart.German.

A false friend is worse than an open enemy.German.

A lather is a treasure, a brother a comfort, but a friend is both.

A foe to God was never true friend to man.Young.

A friend and look to thyself.

A friend as far as conscience allows.

A friend at one’s back is a safe bridge.Dutch.

A friend cannot be known in prosperity nor an enemy be hidden in adversity.

A friend in need is a friend in deed.

A friend in the market is better than money in the chest.

A friend is best found in adversity.

A friend is better than money in the purse.Dutch.

A friend is never known till needed.

A friend is not known till he is lost.

A friend is not so soon gotten as lost.

A friend is often best known by his loss.German.

A friend is one who jumps down and puts on the drag when he finds you are going down hill too fast.Punch.

A friend is to be taken with his faults.Portuguese.

A friend—one soul, two bodies.Oriental.

A friend should bear a friend’s infirmities.Shakespeare.

A friend that you buy with presents will be bought from you.

A friend to everybody is a friend to nobody.Spanish.

A friend to my table and wine is no good neighbor.French.

A friend without faults will never be found.

A friend’s dinner is soon dressed.Dutch.

A friend’s faults should be known but not abhorred.Portuguese.

A friend’s faults may be noticed but not blamed.Danish.

A friend’s frown is better than a fool’s smile.

A good friend is better than silver and gold.Dutch.

A good friend is my nearest relation.

A good friend never offends.

A good-natured friend is often only an enemy in disguise.Punch.

A man may see his friend need but winna see him bleed.

A man without a friend is only half a man.

A plaster house, a horse at grass,
A friend in words, are all mere grass.Dutch.

A ready way to lose your friend is to lend him money.

A reconciled friend is a double enemy.

A rich friend is a treasure.

A sure friend is known in a doubtful case.

A table friend is changeable.French.

A thousand friends are few, one foe many.Turkish.

A treacherous friend is the most dangerous enemy.Fielding.

A true friend does sometimes venture to be offensive.

A true friend is above all things sure capital.German.

A true friend is better than a relation.Turkish.

A true friend is forever a friend.Geo. McDonald.

A true friend is known in the day of adversity.Turkish.

A true friend is the nectar of life.Tamil.

Admonish your friends in private, praise them in public.Publius Syrus.

Aft counting keeps friends lang thegither.

Ah! how good it feels, the hand of an old friend.Longfellow.

All are not friends who speak one fair.

An old friend is better than two new ones.German, Russian.

An untried friend is like an uncracked nut.Russian.

At weddings and funerals friends are discovered from kinsfolk.

Avoid a friend who covers you with his wings and destroys you with his beak.Spanish.

Be a friend to thyself and others will be so too.

Be blind to the failings of your friends but never to their vices.Tacitus.

Behold thy friend and of thyself the pattern see.

Before you make a friend eat a peck of salt with him.Scotch.

Better a good friend than silver and gold.German.

Better an open enemy than a false friend.Danish.

Better foes than hollow friends.Shakespeare.

Better have a friend on the road than gold or silver in your purse.French.

Better have a friend in the market-place than money in your coffer.Portuguese.

Between two friends, a notary and two witnesses.Spanish.

Beware of a reconciled friend as of a devil.Spanish.

Bought friends are not friends in deed.

By requiting one friend we invite many.

Can’t I be your friend, but I must be your fool too?

Defend me from my friends, I can defend myself from my enemies.Marechal Villars.

Desertion of a calumniated friend is an immoral action.Dr. Johnson.

Even reckoning keeps long friends.

Everybody’s companion is nobody’s friend.German.

Everybody’s friend and nobody’s friend is all one.Spanish, Portuguese.

Everybody’s friend is everybody’s fool.German, Dutch, Danish.

Eye-friend, false friend;—eye-friend, back enemy.German.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend.Bible.

Fall not out with a friend for a trifle.

Fall sick and you will see who is your friend and who is not.Spanish.

Familiar paths and old friends are the best.German.

False friends are worse than open enemies.

Few there are that will endure a true friend.

Fire and water are not more necessary than friends are.

Fresh fish and poor friends grow soon ill-fav’r’d.

Friends agree best at a distance.French.

Friends and mules fail us at hard passes.Gallician.

Friends are far from a man who is unfortunate.Latin.

Friends are like fiddle strings: they must not be screwed too tight.

Friends are like melons; shall I tell you why?
To find one good you must a hundred try.Claude Mermet.

Friends are not so soon got or recovered as lost.

Friends are the nearest relations.

Friends become foes and foes are reconciled.Latin.

Friends got without desert are lost without cause.

Friends living far away are no friends.Greek.

Friends may meet but mountains never greet.

Friends need no formal invitation.

Friends tie their purse with a cobweb thread.Italian.

Give out that you have many friends and believe that you have but few.French.

Go slowly to the entertainments of thy friends and quickly to their misfortunes.Chilo.

God keep me from my friends, from my enemies I will keep myself.Italian.

Good neighbors and true friends are two things.

Happy men shall have many friends.

Have but few friends though much acquaintance.

He is a fair weather friend.

He is my friend who grinds at my mill.Spanish, Portuguese.

He is my friend that succoreth me, not he that pitieth me.

He is no friend that eats his own by himself and mine with me.Portuguese.

He makes no friend who never made a foe.Tennyson.

He never was a friend who ceased to be so for a slight cause.Portuguese.

He never was a friend who has ceased to be one.French.

He is a friend at sneezing time, the most that can be got from him is a “God bless you.”Italian.

He that seeks to have many friends never has any.Italian.

He that trusts a faithless friend has a good witness against him.Spanish.

He that would have many friends should try a few of them.Italian.

He who cannot counterfeit a friend, can never be a dangerous enemy.

He who for his own sake would expose a friend deserves not to have one.Rousseau.

He who has a good nest finds good friends.Portuguese.

He who has a thousand friends, has not a friend to spare,
He who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.Persian.

He who has many friends has no friends.Aristotle.

He who has no enemy has no friend.German.

He who is everybody’s friend is either very poor or very rich.Spanish.

He who is his own friend is a friend to all men.Seneca.

He who is wanting but to one friend loseth a great many by it.

He who makes friends of all keeps none.

He is a good friend that speaks well of us behind our backs.

Here’s to our friends and hang up the rest of mankind.

Hit him again, he has no friends.

I am on good terms with the friend who eats his bread with me.Spanish.

I was wounded in the house of my friends.Bible.

I will be thy friend but not thy vices’ friend.

I would rather have a dog my friend than enemy.German.

If you had had fewer friends and more enemies you had been a better man.

If you have one true friend you have more than your share.

If you want enemies excel others, if you want friends let others excel you.

If you wanted me an’ your meat, you would want a gude freende.

In time of prosperity friends will be plenty.
In time of adversity not one amongst twenty.

It is a good friend that is always giving though it be never so little.

It is as bad to have too many friends as no friend at all.Latin.

It is better to decide a difference between enemies than friends, for one of our friends will certainly become an enemy, and one of our enemies a friend.Bias.

It is good to have friends everywhere.

It is important but not easy to distinguish a true friend from an agreeable enemy.Petrarch.

It is more disgraceful to suspect our friends than to be deceived by them.French.

It is no small grief to a good nature to try his friends.Euripides.

It is no use hiding from a friend what is known to an enemy.Danish.

Keep your mouth and keep your friend.Danish.

Let him who is wretched and beggared try everybody and then his friend.Italian.

Let not one enemy be little in thy eyes, nor a thousand friends be many in thy sight.Hebrew.

Let our friends perish provided our enemies fall with them. (An atrocious maxim of the Greeks and Romans.)

Let us be friends and put out the devil’s eyes.

Let us be friends, let our purses be at variance.Modern Greek.

Little intermitting makes gude freends.

Make no friend of thy thrall.Northmen.

Make not thy friend too cheap to thee, nor thyself to thy friend.

Many a man is a good friend but a bad neighbor.Danish.

Many friends and few helpers in need.German.

Many humble servants but not one true friend.

Many kinsfolk, few friends.

May God not prosper our friends that they forget us.Spanish.

My friend is he who helps me in time of need.German.

My friend’s enemy is often my best friend.German.

No better friend than the man himself.German.

No friend a friend until he shall prove a friend.Beaumont and Fletcher.

No longer foster, no longer friend.

Nothing is more annoying than a tardy friend.Plautus.

Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend. (This maxim is illustrated by the fable of the bear and the man.)La Fontaine.

Old friends and new reckonings.French.

Old friends are best.Selden.

Old friends and old ways ought not to be disdained.Danish.

Old friends and old wine are best.

Old friends are not to be paid with gold.German.

Old tunes are sweetest and old friends are surest.

On the choice of friends our good or evil name depends.Gray.

One enemy can harm you more than a hundred friends can do you good.German.

One enemy is too much for a man in a great post and a hundred friends are too few.

One God no more, but friends good store.

One seldom finds white ravens and true friends.German.

One should fly a laughing enemy and a flattering friend.German.

Prove thy friends ere thou have need.

Rather have a little one for your friend, than a great one for your enemy.Italian.

Save me from my friends.

So long as fortune sits at the table friends sit there.German.

Sweet language will multiply friends.Spectator.

Tell nothing to thy friend which thy enemy may not know.Danish.

Tell your friend your secret and he will set his foot on your neck.Italian, Spanish, Portuguese.

The best friend often becomes the worst enemy.German.

The best looking-glass is an old friend.German.

The best of friends must part.

The enemy of my friend is often my best friend.German.

The false friend is like the shadow of a sundial.French.

The friend looks at the head, the enemy at the foot.Turkish.

The friends thou hast and their adoption tried,
Grapple to thy soul with hooks of steel.Shaksespeare.

The goods of friends are in common.Pythagoras.

The greatest affliction that can befall a man is the unkindness of a friend.Fielding.

The greatest blessing is a pleasant friend.Horace.

The hireling is gained by money, the true friend by an obliging behavior.Chinese.

The interested friend is a swallow on the roof. (Prepared to leave on the appearance of winter.)French.

The oldest friend is the best friend for a man.Plautus.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.Emerson.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.Holmes.

The voice is powerful of a faithful friend.Homer.

There is no living without friends.Portuguese.

There is no more hold of a new friend than of a new fashion.

There’s no living without friends.Portuguese.

They are rich who have friends.Spanish, Portuguese, Latin.

They are rich who have true friends.

They cease to be friends who dwell afar off.Latin.

’Tis easier to preserve a friend than to recover him when lost.

To a friend’s house the road is never long.Danish.

To be every one’s friend is to be every one’s fool.German.

To preserve a friend three things are required: to honor him present, praise him absent, and assist him in his necessities.Italian.

Treat your friend as if you knew that he will one day become your enemy.Laberius.

Trust not the praise of a friend nor the contempt of an enemy.Italian.

Try your friend ere you trust him.

Try your friend with a falsehood and if he keep it a secret tell him the truth.Italian.

Unless you bear with the faults of a friend you betray your own.Publius Syrus.

We can live without a brother but not without a friend.German.

We can live without our friends but not without our neighbors.

We must ask what is proper from our friends.Cicero.

We shall never have friends if we expect to have them without fault.

We should behave toward our friends, as we should wish them to behave toward us.Aristotle.

We should have many well wishers but few friends.Spectator.

When a friend asketh there is no to-morrow.Spanish.

When friends meet, hearts warm.

When good cheer is lacking, our friends will be packing.

When there are two friends to one purse, the one sings, the other weeps.Spanish.

Where friends, there riches.German, Portuguese.

Where shall a man have a worse friend than he brings from home?

Where two faithful friends meet, God makes up a third.

Wherever you see your friend trust yourself.

Wherever you see your kindred, make much of your friends.

Who has no friends only half lives.German.

Who has true friends is rich.German.

Who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.Shakespeare.

Who makes friends of all keeps none.German.

Who would have many friends let him test but few.Italian.

Without a friend the world is a wilderness.

Your candid friend has never anything pleasant to say to you; he reminds you of his pet virtue by wounding you with it.