From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.
Hilaire BellocRead
When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside world which is like the cold space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly.
Interpretation
Friendship provides warmth and connection, and without it, we experience profound loneliness.
This quote by Hilaire Belloc emphasizes the vital role friendship plays in our lives. When we lose our friends, we are left exposed to the harsh realities of isolation, akin to the cold, desolate expanses of space where life cannot thrive. Belloc suggests that friendship serves as a refuge from the loneliness that can otherwise engulf us, making human connection essential for our well-being.
In practice
In a speech about mental health, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of social connections.
From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.
It has been discovered that with a dull urban population, all formed under a mechanical system of State education, a suggestion or command, however senseless and unreasoned, will be obeyed if it be sufficiently repeated.
Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!
An institute run with such knavish imbecility that if it were not the work of God it would not last a fortnight.
When I am dead, I hope it may be said: His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.
Every major question in history is a religious question. It has more effect in molding life than nationalism or a common language.
We form an association of brothers in all points of the globe ... yet there is one unseen that can hardly be felt, yet it weighs on us. Whence comes it? Where is it? No one knows ... or at least no one tells. This association is secret even to us the veterans of the Secret Societies.
Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.
I listened so hard because it felt like, while she was telling me stories, she was massaging my soul, letting me know that I was not alone, that I will never have to be alone, that there are friends and family and churches and coffee shops. I was not going to be cast into space.
I don't know what I would do in the world without [female friends] for advice, for comfort, for simply knowing that there is someone out there who knows me as I am, and loves me despite and because of it.
One friend in a life-time is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.
There is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.
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