Unlike quotations on advocating a lazy life of ease and debauchery, there is no dearth of written or recorded thought about the wonderful and salubrious qualities of friendship. It seems even the great makers and takers of history, from time to time, needed a buddy to shoot the snuff with.

I’ve included what I consider to be the top 10 best friend quotes – the most thoughtful or thought-provoking quotes, and if you aren’t sated, the Web is virtually crowded with sites devoted to the platonic arrangement. These top 10 best friend quotes are in no particular order, importance or inspired by their source. Abraham Lincoln appears but so do a few proverbial sayings on the subject from distant lands. I’ve taken nothing from music. Forgive me, but I like hip-hop, and in general, espousing your love for your fellow human being isn’t touted as rapper’s virtue.

10. Zora Neale Hurston

It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.

9. Emily Dickinson

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

8. Charlotte, “Charlotte’s Web”

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.

7. Sicilian Proverb

Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty. 

6. Mark Twain

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

5. Samuel Johnson

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.

4. Ralph Waldo Emerson

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

3. Claude Mermet

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

2. Arabic proverb

If your friend is like honey, don’t like him too much.

(To wit: Say you’ve got a rich friend, don’t hit him up for money all the time)

1. Abraham Lincoln

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.