Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Love:
- Friendship &
the Brotherhood of Man
-
- "The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand,
nor the kindly smile... it's the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers
that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his
friendship."
R. W. Emerson
- Editor's note: occasionally, some of the items below, for
example, Melville's Moby Dick, and Twain's work, will also feature an
accompanying "Editor's Essay," a link for which will be found at the top of the
page of the article under review.
-
- Stand by Me, the movie, the final words: "I never had another friend like the one that I had when I was 12 -- does
anyone?"
- Abraham Lincoln: "He has the right to criticize who has the
heart to help."
- John Le Carre: "Love is whatever you can still betray.
Betrayal can only happen if you love."
- Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural
Address, March 4, 1861: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The
mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every
living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the
Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature."
- Albert Camus: "Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't
walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and just be my friend."
- Charles Caleb Colton: "True friendship is like sound health; the
value of it is seldom known until it be lost."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The only way to have a friend is to be
one."
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I
believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not
expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect
it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."
- Martin Luther King, Jr., on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, 28 August 1963:
"When we let freedom ring...when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet,
from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's
children: black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be
able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last,
free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!"
- Dr. Leslie D. Weatherhead, Discipleship: "The name
of John Wesley is sometimes invoked in favour of narrow views. Let me quote some words of
his: "Give me your hand. I do not mean you to be of my
opinion; you need not. I do not expect it or desire it; neither do I mean I will be of
your opinion. I cannot; it does not depend on my choice. I can no more think than I can
say or hear as I will. Keep your opinion and I mine, as steadily as ever. Only give me
your hand. I do not mean embrace my modes of worship or I embrace yours. I have no desire
to dispute with you one moment. Let all matters -- of belief -- stand aside, let them
never come inside. If thine heart is as my heart, if thou love God and all mankind I ask
no more. Give me thine hand. 'I believe,' someone has said, 'in the beloved community and
in the spirit which makes it beloved and in the communion of all who, in will and deed,
are its members. I see no such ideal community as yet, but my rule in life is: Act so
as to hasten its coming."
E.
Ambrose Comrades:
“Friendship is different from all other relationships. Unlike acquaintanceship, it is
based on love. Unlike lovers and married couples, it is free of jealousy. Unlike children
and parents, it knows neither criticism nor resentment. Friendship has no status in law.
Business partnerships are based on a contract. So is marriage. Parents are bound by the
law, as are children. But friendship is freely entered into, freely given, freely
exercised. Friends never cheat each other, or take advantage, or lie. Friends do not spy
on one another, yet they have no secrets. Friends glory in each other's successes and are
downcast by the failures. Friends minister to each other, nurse each other. Friends give
to each other, worry about each other, stand always ready to help. Perfect friendship is
rarely achieved, but at its height, is an ecstasy.”
- Paramahansa
Yogananda:
“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is
unselfishness, thinking of others first. When you learn to live for others, they will live
for you.”
- W.
H. Auden:
“And none will hear the postman’s knock Without a quickening of the heart. For
who can bear to feel himself forgotten?”
- John
Donne:
“Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls. For, thus friends absent speak.”
- C.S.
Lewis:
“Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make
sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it
carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe
in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless,
airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable,
irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
- Oscar
Wilde:
“Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object
does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have but one great
experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as
possible.”
- Eric Hoffer: "It is easier to love humanity than to love your
neighbor."
- Luciano de Crescenzo: "We are each of us angels with only
one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another."
- William T. Sherman, speaking of Grant: "He stood by me when
I was crazy and I stood by him when he was drunk; and now sir, we stand by each
other."
- William T. Sherman, to Grant: "I knew wherever I was that
you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come -- if alive."
- Colette, The Pure and the Impure, 1932: "It is
wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanisms of friendship."
- Barbara De Angelis: "If you aren't good at
loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the
time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself."
- "Does it matter": "If killing
your brother means survival then take the bullet... Because the worst kind of man kills
his brother."
- E.E. Cummings: "We do not
believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth
listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we
can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human
spirit."
- JFK, Berlin, 26 June, 1963:
"There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to
Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the
Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that
Communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach
Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin...You live in a defended island of freedom, but
your life is part of the main. So let me ask you as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the
dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of
Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall
to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind. Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.
When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as
one and this country and this great continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe.
When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober
satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades. All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and,
therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ich bin ein Berliner."
- Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 1764: "The wicked have
only accomplices; voluptuaries have companions in debauch, self-seekers have partners,
politicians attract partisans; the generality of idle men have attachments; princes have
courtiers, and virtuous men alone have friends."
- George Washington: "Be courteous to
all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them
your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow grow, and must undergo and withstand
the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, from Monticello, August 15, 1820:
"... I am sure that ... I love you with all my heart, and pray for the continuance of
your life until you shall be tired of it yourself."
- John
Ruskan, Emotional Clearing (2000): "A successful outcome to
therapy is achieved when the client no longer needs the supportive energy of the therapist
but can provide support through self-acceptance. The client ... is now
self-sustaining, able to provide nurturing and healing from within." [Editor's
note: Compare this thought with Emerson's words, the masthead quote, at the top of
this column.]
- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations: An
individual "stands
at all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few
persons."
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