"Because of a friend ~ life is a little stronger, a fuller, more gracious thing;  for a friend's existence, whether he be near or far.  If a friend is close at hand, that is best but if he is far away he is still there to think of, to wonder about, to hear from, to write to, to share life and experience with, to serve, to honour, to admire, to love."

~ Arthur C. Benson (1862 - 1925) English essayist, poet, author.

"Happy Valentine's Day"

 

 

"You're my friend ~
What a thing friendship is, world without end!"
~ Robert Browning, The Flight of the Duchess

"In every mess I finds a friend."

~ Charles Dibdin, Jack in His Element

"Money can't buy friends
but you can get a better class of enemy."
~ Spike Milligan

"Sir, I look upon every day to be

lost, in which I do not make

a new acquaintance."

~ Samuel Johnson

 

"Even if we take matrimony

at its lowest, even if we regard it

as no more than a sort of friendship

recognized by the police."

~ Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque

~ THE LITTLE BOOK of Friends, A Compilation by Brockhampton Press 1996.

"I do love nothing in the world so well as you;  is not that strange?"
~ Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

"Love cannot be wasted.
It makes no difference where
it is bestowed; it always
brings in big returns."
~ Anonymous


"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination...."
~ John Keats

"There's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young dream."
~ Thomas Moore


Compiled by Heather H. Copp, Harvest House Publishers, 1997.

"And who will walk a mile with me
     Along life's weary way?
A friend whose heart has eyes to see
The stars shine out o'er the darkening lea."

~ Henry van Dyke, A Wayfaring Song

[Photo from cover of a 1935 book by J. Hartley Manners titled, Peg O' My Heart]

It's all I have to bring today,
This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget, ~
Some one the sum could tell, ~
This, and my heart, and all the bees
Which in the clover dwell.

~ Emily Dickinson

[Photo files lbw]

"My lover spoke and said to me,

Arise, my darling,

my beautiful one, and come with me.

See!  The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth;

the season of singing has come...."

 

 

~ The Song of Songs

 

"There's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young dream."

 

~ Thomas Moore

 

VALENTINE'S DAY is Sunday, February 14. [Photo files:  Jackson House, King Street & Centennial, Stoney Creek. lbw]

 



"Today there are two elements that go into friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in either,... - One is Truth.  A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud....-.  The other element of friendship is Tenderness....- When a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal of fortune....-.  I wish friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence.  It must plant itself on the ground before it walks over the moon...-.  The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.  It must not surmise or provide for infirmity.  It treats its object as a god, that it may defy both."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Friendship and Love"


VALENTINE'S DAY is Sunday, February 14