Quotes by friendship

“Peter Brown, that great historian of early Christianity, has given the most cogent explanation for the arising of the cult of the saints in the late Roman world. He explains that the emphasis of early Christian preaching on judgment, on the human need for redemption from sin, brought to the minds of common people — among whom Christianity was early successful — their social and political condition. Having strictly limited powers to remedy any injustice they might suffer, or to clear themselves of any charges of wrongdoing, they turned, when they could, to their social betters in hope of aid. If a local patrician could befriend them — could be, at least for a time, their patron — then they had a chance, at least, of receiving justice or at least escaping punishment. “It is this hope of amnesty,” Brown writes, “that pushed the saint to the foreground as patronus. For patronage and friendship derived their appeal from a proven ability to render malleable seemingly inexorable processes, and to bridge with the warm breath of personal acquaintance the great distances of the late-Roman social world. In a world so sternly organized around sin and justice, patrocimium [patronage] and amicitia provided a much-needed language of amnesty.” As this cult became more and more deeply entrenched in the Christian life, it made sense for there to be, not just feast days for individual saints, but a day on which everyone’s indebtedness to the whole company of saints — gathered around the throne of God, pleading on our behalf — could be properly acknowledged. After all, we do not know who all the saints are: no doubt men and women of great holiness escaped the notice of their peers, but are known to God. They deserve our thanks, even if we cannot thank them by name. So the logic went: and a general celebration of the saints seems to have begun as early as the fourth century, though it would only be four hundred years later that Pope Gregory III would designate the first day of November as the Feast of All Saints.”

christianity friendship

“You’re my best friend; I notice when your hands shake. I notice when your big mouth goes quiet!”

“It s by stooping that fingers create a fist, and by standing tall that they give us open palms.”

“A dynamic person can easily grow and become a civil human when they start to live independently.”

“A spiritual connection with someone lasts forever, even when physical presence fades.”

“Brod was a brilliant intellectual with exceptional energy; a generous man willing to do battle for others; his attachment to Kafka was warm and disinterested. The only problem was his artistic orientation: a man of ideas, he knew nothing of the passion for form; his novels (he wrote twenty of them) are sadly conventional; and above all: he understood nothing at all about modern art. Why, despite all this, was Kafka so fond of him? What about you-do you stop being fond of your best friend because he has a compulsion to write bad verse?”

“Damn! What did Ansermet, that most faithful friend, know about Stravinsky s poverty of heart? What did he, that most devoted friend, know about Stravinsky s capacity to love? And where did he get his utter certainty that the heart is ethically superior to the brain? Are not vile acts committed as often with the heart s help as without it? Can t fanatics, with their bloody hands, boast of a high degree of affective activity ? Will we ever be done with this imbecile sentimental Inquisition, the heart s Reign of Terror?”

“If everyone in New York took sides over these petty, insignificant arguments, no one would have any friends at all.”

“I ll put it on my table where I keep my drawings, Hassan said. His saying that made me kind of sad. Sad for who Hassan was, where he lived. For how he d accepted the fact that he d grow old in that mud shack in the yard, the way his father had.”

“Habíamos crecido demasiado separadas, y nuestras heridas del pasado eran demasiado grandes. La verdadera amistad ya no era una opción. Pero no siento melancolía acerca de ello, me siento aliviada. Hay cierto respeto y buenos deseos entre nosotras. Y eso no es cualquier cosa.”

“We all used to try so hard to fit in. We wanted to look exactly alike, do all the same things, practically be the same person, but when we weren t looking that all changed….what the summer actually brought was independence from each other.”

“One did not fully exist without the other.”