QUANTITY VS QUALITY OF FRIENDS

ON THE FRIENDSHIP CAFÉ

It's Better to Have One Friend of Great Value than Many Friends of Little Value

 “Friends should be few but good,” advises a Greek proverb. In the same vein, a Jewish proverb states, "The good fellow to everyone is a good friend to no one." What these two proverbs emphasize is that it’s the quality and not the quantity that matters in the friendship game.

Chances are that we won’t ever experience true friendship with casual acquaintances that we encounter from time to time or those with whom we spend a lot of time for ulterior reasons. If social status is your basis for making friends, your friendships are not on sound footing.

Don't pity the girl with one true friend. Envy her. Pity the girl with just a thousand acquaintances.
- Unknown Wise Person

This is equally true if workplace association is the basis of your friendship. Generally speaking, we should not count on true friendship from workplace colleagues.

As in many areas of life, less can be more in the friendship game. Although it’s nice to have a lot of friends, too many will complicate your life. Succumbing to the temptation to have as many friends as possible will hinder your overall happiness, since it depletes your time, energy, money, and creativity -resources that can be better utilized in getting whatever else you want out of life.

It is not how many friends you have won in life that counts, but how many you have left.
- Unknown Wise Person

What’s more, it’s unlikely that you will develop many real friends if you spread yourself too thin among too many individuals. Here are some more friendship quotes and friendship sayings that stress the importance of quality versus quantity in the friendship game:

COPYRIGHT © 2010 by Ernie J. Zelinski

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen.
- Samuel Paterson

It's a lot like nature. You only have as many animals as the ecosystem can support and you only have as many friends as you can tolerate the bitching of.
- Randy K. Milholland

Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
- Cicero

Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can't have too many friends because then you're just not really friends.
- Truman Capote

I want to see all the countries in the world and learn all the languages. I want to have thousands of friends and I want all my friends to be different.
- Diana Nyad

I am hoarder of two things: documents and trusted friends.
- Muriel Spark

I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one’s partners in the waltz of this world-not much remembered when the ball is over.
- George Gordon Noel Byron

I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this world - not much remembered when the ball is over.
- Lord Byron

One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.
- Henry Adams

It is better to have one friend of great value than to have many friends of little value.
- Author Unknown

As people grow up, they realize it becomes less important to have more friends, and more important to have real ones.
- Laguna Beach

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. . . . The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London.
- E. M. Forster

I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this world- not much remembered when the ball is over.
- Lord Byron (1788-1824), English poet. Letter, 16 Nov.

I have three kinds of friends: those who love me, those who pay no attention to me, and those who detest me.
- Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort (1741-94), French writer

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
- George Washington (1732-99), U.S. general, president

Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can't have too many friends because then you're just not really friends.
- Truman Capote (1924-84), U.S. author 

COPYRIGHT © 2010 by Ernie J. Zelinski

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