Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.
Graham GreeneRead
Friendship is something in the soul. It is a thing one feels. It is not a return for something.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Friendship is a deep emotional connection that doesn't rely on reciprocity or material exchange.
In this quote, Graham Greene emphasizes that true friendship goes beyond mere transactional interactions and is rooted in the emotional and spiritual realm. It highlights the intrinsic value of friendship, suggesting that it is a profound feeling that resides within the soul and should not be viewed as a trade or obligation.
Themes
FriendshipSoulEmotionConnectionTrust
In practice
Example use cases
During a toast at a wedding, one might quote Greene to highlight the importance of emotional bonds in friendships.
More from Graham Greene
All quotes →It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn’t the test of man have been carried out in fewer years? Couldn’t we have committed our first major sin at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old deathbed?
Graham GreeneRead
God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love.
Graham GreeneRead
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
Graham GreeneRead
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Graham GreeneRead
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
Graham GreeneRead
Similar quotes
There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.
James BoswellRead
Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night!
Hermann HesseRead
He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back.
Oliver GoldsmithRead
Michael Jackson? He was something more (than one of my favorite entertainers), a true friend. He wasn't just a genius. Above all, he was a good person, who gave so much. He gave people values, he encouraged them to better themselves all the time. He was far deeper and more authentic than people could see. He was misunderstood too many times
Kobe BryantRead
There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.Read
If thy friends be of better quality than thyself, thou mayest be sure of two things; first, they will be more careful to keep thy counsel, because they have more to lose than thou hast; the second, they will esteem thee for thyself, and not for that which thou dost possess.
Walter RaleighRead