Collected musings

Friendship

If out of all mankind one finds a single friend, he has found something more precious than any treasure, since there is nothing in the world so valuable that it can be compared to a real friend.

-- Andreas Capellanus, _The Art of Courtly Love_

from "Love -- thou art high --"

Emily Dickinson

Love - thou art deep --
I cannot cross thee --

But, were there Two

Instead of One --

Rower, and Yacht - some sovereign Summer --

Who knows -- but we'd reach the Sun?

A Wonderful Advantage

It is a wonderful advantage to a man, in every pursuit or avocation, to secure an advisor in a sensible woman. In woman there is at once a subtle delicacy of tact and a plain soundness of judgement which are rarely combined to an equal degree in man. A woman, if she be really your friend, will have a sensitive regard for your character, honor, repute. She will seldom counsel you to do a shabby thing; for a woman friend always desires to be proud of you.

--- The Earl of Lytton (1831-91)

When I give at all I want to give my whole heart, and I feel that so few want it all.

--Woodrow Wilson

Love in the Guise of Friendsip

Robert Burns

Talk not of love, it gives me pain,

For love has been my foe;

He bound me in an iron chain,

And plung'd me deep in woe.

But friendship's pure and lasting joys,

My heart was form'd to prove;

There, welcome win and wear the prize,

But never talk of love.

Your friendship much can make me blest,

O why that bliss destroy?

Why urge the only, one request

You know I will deny?

Your thought, if Love must harbour there,

Conceal it in that thought;

Nor cause it in that thought;

Nor cause me from my bosom tear

The very friend I sought.

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