True friends are special. A true friend knows and understands you on a deeper level. They accept you for who you are and are always there when you need them, be it in times of joy or sadness. They help you evolve and achieve your true potential. This is what differentiates a real friend from a so called friend of acquaintance.
This article is a collection of some of the most beautiful quotes on true friends and how they are different from ‘so called friends’ or acquaintances.
Here are the quotes.
“True friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer.”
– Unknown
With real friends there are no formalities. They don’t say or do things just for the sake of it. So when they ask how you are, they are not doing it to fulfill a formality, instead, they genuinely want to know the answer.
“The difference between your friend and your best friend is that your friend asks, ‘Are you ok?’ and your best friend asks, ‘Do you want to talk about it?”
– Savania China
With a true friend, there are no formalities. They do not ask you something for the sake for asking it. They genuinely mean what they say. So when they see that you need a listening ear, they are more than willing to give it to you.
“A true friend, doesn’t care about you weight, if your house is a mess, what you drive, how successful you are, about your past, or if your family is filled with crazy people. They love you for who you are..”
“True friends are always together in spirit.”
– L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
A true friend cannot be forgotten. They are there with you always.
“A friend will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.”
– Richard Bach
“Some talk to you in their free time and some free their time to talk to you. That's the difference between a friend and a true friend.”
“Don’t be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”
– Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
“Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but a true friend is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
– Oprah Winfrey
Absolutely perfect description of a true friend by Oprah. They are always with you irrespective of the circumstances.
“A true friend is someone with whom you can be yourself, you don’t need to pretend to be someone you are not.”
“True friends, they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.”
― Henry David Thoreau
David Thoreau is right in pointing out that a true friend understands your hopes and dreams and always encourages you to do your best.
“Without a best friend to tell stories to, it almost didn’t matter if they even happened.”
– Leila Howland
It’s such a pleasure to spend hours conversing with a true friend telling them your stories and listening to their’s.
“True friends are like cozy sweaters, they’ll always be there to keep you warm when the rest of the world leaves you shivering.”
– Jennifer LeBlanc
A cozy sweater is the perfect metaphor for a good friend.
“A good friend is a balm for the heart.”
– Linda A. Tancs
Balm for the heart is such a beautiful metaphor for a good friend.
“True friends are like stars you don’t always see them but you know they are there.”
– Christy Evans
“That was what a best friend did: hold up a mirror and show you your heart.”
– Kristin Hannah, Firefly Lane
A good friend understands you on a deeper level and hence they reflect back to you your true nature.
“Ten minutes with a genuine friend is better than years spent with anyone less.”
– Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading 2
Isn’t this absolutely true? Even a few minutes spent with a genuine friend, rejuvenates and fills you with positive energy as opposed to spending time with some people who might actually make you feel drained.
“That’s what friends do: they notice things. They’re there for each other. They see what parents don’t.”
– Nina LaCour, Hold Still
“Friendship… is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“With true friends, no one is keeping score. But it still feels good to repay them – even in the tiniest increments.”
― Emery Lord, The Start of Me and You
True friends do not expect anything from you. All they want is your friendship.
“That’s the problem with best friends. Sometimes they know you better than you know yourself.”
– Cecily von Ziegesar, Nobody Does it Better
Isn’t that so true?
“A true friend is one you can go extended periods without seeing or talking to, yet the moment that you are back in touch, it’s like no time has passed at all.”
– Ellie Wade, A Forever Kind of Love
Such a beautiful quote that sums up the fact that true friends are always with each other even when they are physically apart.
“A friend is not the shadow that mimics you, but the one who casts all shadows away.”
– Shannon L. Alder
A true friend can help you understand yourself as they know you on a deeper level. And hence, they help cast all the doubts away and bring clarity.
“But the thing with a best friend is that you’re never talking about nothing. Even when you’re talking about nothing, it’s something. The times when you think you’re talking about nothing, you’re actually talking about how you have someone with whom you can talk about nothing, and it’s fine.”
– Jeff Zentner, Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee
This is so true. With a true friend, you need not fill in the gaps with constant chatter. You have the freedom the be silent and present in each other’s company which is beautiful.
“True friendship is trading photos from toilets. It’s a willingness to be vulnerable and stupid and irreverent in a way that other people can’t accept and that you can’t accept from other people.”
– Mike Wehner, The Girl Who Can Cook
With you friend, you need not live up to any standards. You can be as goofy with them as you want to be.
“Some might wonder that the two people should consider themselves to be old friends having only known each other for four years; but the tenure of friendships has never been governed by the passage of time.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
Sometimes you find amazing people much later in life but when you find them, it’s like you have known them all along.
“It’s the person that calls you up because they’re eating at ‘our favorite spot,’ and it made them think of you and miss being there with you. That’s a friend, to me.”
– Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading 2
The places that you frequent as friends become itched in your memories. And when you visit such a place alone, it does bring back all those memories.
“Real friends are the people with whom you pick up where you’d left off, whether it be a week since you’d seen each other or two years.”
– Jojo Moyes, One Plus One
With a true friend, you remember each and every moment. It does not matter how long it has been. The memories remain.
“Real friends are like salt and sugar: such different flavors, but so close in every other way you could never sort them apart once they are together.”
― Sarah Miller
Beautifully said by Sarah Miller.
“A true friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”
– Anonymous
“A best friend is one who understands humor in your most weird jokes..”
– Unknown
Only a true friend will understand your weird jokes that no one else finds funny.
“Your best friend is the person who not only knows all the important stories and events in your life, but has lived through them with you.”
– Irene S. Levine
A true friend knows everything about you. And in most cases, not because you told them, but because they experienced it with you.
Your best friend isn’t the person you call when you are in jail; mostly likely, she is sitting in the cell beside you.”
– Irene S. Levine, Best Friends Forever
Funny, yet so true.
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
– Mark Twain
Mark Twain definitely knew the value of a good friend.
“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in His Journals
With a good friend, you don’t need to live up to a certain standard. You can be as you want to be with them.
“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
With friends, it’s not about the quantity but the quality that matters.
“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
Such a beautifully deep quote about true friend by Eleanor Roosevelt.
“There’s not a word yet, for old friends who’ve just met.”
– Jim Henson
It’s hard to describe that surreal feeling when you reconnect with an old friend, isn’t it?
Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.”
– Trenton Lee Stewart
Best friends are no less than family.
“Friends are the family you choose.”
– Jess C Scott
You don’t get to choose your family members, but with friends you have that choice.
“A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
– George Eliot
Poetic quote by George Eliot that captures the essence of true friendship.
“Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.”
– Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh (the famous painter), definitely knew the value of a good friend.
“Friends are God’s way of apologizing for your family.”
– Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
Funny quote, but perhaps true for many of us.
“Friends don’t spy; true friendship is about privacy, too.”
– Stephen King
A true friend respects your private space and knows the boundary.
“Real friends are the ones you can count on no matter what. The ones who go into the forest to find you and bring you home. And real friends never have to tell you that they’re your friends.”
– Morgan Matson
The bond of friendship builds naturally. You don’t need to keep telling each other than you are friends.
“An acquaintance merely enjoys your company, a fair-weather companion flatters when all is well, a true friend has your best interests at heart and the pluck to tell you what you need to hear.”
– E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly.
A good friend will not flatter your ego, but tell you the important things that you need to hear.
“Your truest friends are the ones who will stand by you in your darkest moments – because they’re willing to brave the shadows with you – and in your greatest moments–because they’re not afraid to let you shine.”
― Nicole Yatsonsky
A true friend is not jealous of you, which is why, they are there by your side no matter what.
“For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother”
– Homer, The Odyssey
A true friend understands you and that is what sets them apart from others. In that sense, they are no less than your brother/sister.
“If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you’ll never be and you need not waste time in trying.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle
“When you ask God for a gift, Be thankful if he sends, not diamonds, pearls or riches, but the love of real true friends.”
– Helen Steiner Rice
There is nothing in this world that can replace the love of a true friend.
“The most valuable gift you can receive is an honest friend.”
– Stephen Richards
So true. A honest friend is the greatest gift.
“As I have learned over the years, your friends don’t change; you just learn to ignore or embrace the bad bits.”
– Carrie Adams
Complete acceptance is what makes true friendship possible.
“Two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul.”
– Chaim Potok
Beautifully expressed.
“I love my friends neither with my heart nor with my mind. Just in case..Heart might stop. Mind can forget. I love them with my soul. Soul never stops or forgets.”
– Rumi
As always, Rumi at his poetic best expresses the deep connection between friends.
“And everybody should have at least one person in his or her life who doesn’t want a damned thing from them except a bit of friendly company.”
– Ed Howdershelt, 4th wish
Friends do not expect anything from each other. They are not here for any ulterior objective expect to enjoy each other’s company.
“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”
– G. Randolf
So true.
“Friendship gives us the strength to turn from lambs into lions.”
– Stephen Richards
The right friend(s) can help you break free of limitations and realize your true nature.
“Friendship is a strange animal. It only thrives in voluntary enjoyment of each other’s company, in the pleasure of nonobligatory connection. I repeat: You owe me nothing.”
– Kate Christensen, The Astral
Friends do not expect anything from each other except for the scared bond of friendship.
“Some people have a large circle of friends while others have only friends that they like.”
– Woodrow Wilson
Friends are a tight group while acquaintances can be many.
“It is a great, a pleasant thing to have a friend with whom to walk, untroubled, through the woods, by the stream, saying nothing, at peace, the heart all clean and quiet and empty, ready for the spirit that may choose to be its guest.”
– Catherine Drinker Bowen, Friends and Fiddlers: Memoirs
Beautiful poetic versus to describe the sacred bond of friendship.
“True friends see the full picture of your soul.”
– Shannon Alder
Yes they do.
“You know that you’re a true friend when somebody says “But what about that wart on the end of his nose?” and your honest response is “What wart?“. You see true friends accept you for what you are, wart and all.”
– Jeffrey Michael
A true friend is completely accepting of you irrespective of your flaws.
“A true friend should be able to speak truth to your face, but in your absence, serve as the ultimate defender”
― RJ Intindola (Gandolfo)
A true friend is honest and tells you hard truths, but they always defend you when it comes to others.
“Some friends are like desert plants. They survive long periods without water, but when they bloom,
they produce the most amazing blossoms.”
– Chris Ernest Nelson, Harvest: The Poetry of Chris Ernest Nelson
Friendships stay alive even when friends are not together, but when they finally meet, it’s pure magic.
“You’ll get lunch with your true friends. You’ll make plans to get lunch with your true acquaintances.”
― Unknown
With true friends, you don’t need to make any plans. Everything happens organically.
“Being honest may not make you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.”
– John Lennon
When you are true to yourself, you attract the right friends. Being fake will generally get you fake friends.
Real friends are people you love and hate in equal measure but who are as much a part of you as yourself.”
– C.J. Tudor
“A real friend is someone who likes you for who you want to be and not for who they want you to be.”
– Rebecca Rupp
A real friend does not want impose their ideas and ideologies on to you. Instead, they accept you for who you are and what you want to be.
“When a friendship is important enough, with mutual respect, most obstacles provide the opportunity to broaden each person’s perspective and help each one grow in interesting and unexpected ways.”
– Judy Dippel, Friendship Interrupted
Friends grow with each other.
“You can tell who your friends are because they don’t prevent you from being on your own, because they illuminate your solitude without interrupting it.”
– Christian Bobin
A true friend respects your privacy. They do not try to force their own ideas and ideologies on to you.
“It’s not difficult telling enemies from friends. Your enemies say, “You don’t need to work hard”, Your friends say, “Always do your best”. Your enemies say, “Just quit”, your friends say, “Never give up”. Your enemies say, “No one will ever know”, your friends say, “Always do the right thing”.
― Tim Heaton
“Friends don’t come ready-made or one-size-fits-all. True friends are always custom fit and one-of-a-kind…just for you.”
― Toni Sorenson
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard
“Friendships multiply joys and divide griefs.”
― Thomas Fuller
“A good friend is my nearest relation.”
― Thomas Fuller
“Having a friend light years away taught us that distance is just a state of mind. If you’re best friends, then you always will be, no matter where you are in the universe.”
– Tuck, Earth to Echo (2014)
“A true friend is a second self.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“Two things you will never have to chase: True friends & true love.”
– Mandy Hale
