Befriend Quotes & Sayings

The essence of true religious teaching is that one should serve and befriend all. — Mahatma Gandhi

In the late hours of the night, befriend the prayer mat. — Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri

Perform your task and I shall know you. Perform your task and your genius shall befriend the more. — Ogwo David Emenike

If you wish to befriend someone, look for a person who loves first God then themselves. If they love God, they will be able to love their neighbor, too. — Peter Deunov

I think she'll like me," I said, concerned that my own mother wouldn't like me. My fear exposed the unspoken shame of all families: if you didn't know the people you were related to, would you befriend them? In the days when families hunted and gathered, this wouldn't be a question worth pondering, but once butchering a mammoth stopped being a household chore, we began to suspect families are chain gangs held together by manacles of DNA. — Bob Smith

Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor. — Ogden Nash

There is little to be said in favour of poverty, but it was often an incubator of true friendship. Many people will appear to befriend you when you are wealthy, but precious few will do the same when you are poor — Nelson Mandela

TEN RULES FOR WINNING THE GAME OF CONFIDENCE The actions of confidence come first; the feelings of confidence come later. Genuine confidence is not the absence of fear; it is a transformed relationship with fear. Negative thoughts are normal. Don't fight them; defuse them. Self-acceptance trumps self-esteem. True success is living by your values. Hold your values lightly, but pursue them vigorously. Don't obsess about the outcome; get passionate about the process. Don't fight your fear: allow it, befriend it, and channel it. Failure hurts - but if we're willing to learn, it's a wonderful teacher. The key to peak performance is total engagement in the task. — Russ Harris

If you stay passionate and committed, mediocrity will never be eager to befriend you. — Israelmore Ayivor

Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it. — Benjamin Franklin

For an instant he was able to cross the line and understand this strange loyalty of Jew to Jew. Those Jews who lived free in England were only there due to some quirk of fate instead of Aushwitz and every Jew knew that genocide could have happened to his own family except for that quirk of fate.
Yet, as time stood suspended, Gilray was all gentiles who never quite understood Jews. He could befriend them, work with them, but never totally understand them. He was all white men who could never quite understand black men and all black men who could never quite understand whites. He was all normal men who could tolerate or even defend homosexuals ... but never fully understand them.
There is in us all that line that prevents us from fully understanding those who are different. — Leon Uris

Later that night though, as I stayed awake into the early hours of morning devouring the second novel in a series, I understood what it meant to befriend a book. The books knew me, far better than I knew them; they knew my fears, my doubts, my dreams. They gave words to feelings I did not even realize I experienced. They listened. They consoled. They kept me company. The books gave me a life outside of my own. — Kelseyleigh Reber

You are feeling sad? Befriend it. Have compassion for it. Sadness also has a being. Allow it, embrace it, sit with it, hold hands with it. Be friendly. Be in love with it. Sadness is beautiful! Nothing is wrong with it. Who told you that something is wrong in being sad? In fact, only sadness gives you depth. Laughter is shallow; happiness is skin-deep. Sadness goes to the very bones, to the marrow. Nothing goes as deep as sadness. — Osho

Misha didn't appear taken by her charm. He eyed her as if she's asked him to make her a garlic pizza in the shape of a cross. I laughed: I couldn't help it. Leave it to Shayna to try to befriend the guy who'll probably suck us dry by sundown. — Cecy Robson

Egoism does not have eyes of its own. Some days, it sees through the eyes of the intellect (buddhi). However, what will happen if you befriend a blind man? — Dada Bhagwan

I came to declare that I am a friend to Arabs, at a time when it is not easy to be friend to Arabs, because nowadays those who have ambitions and interests would not befriend Arab. — George Galloway

Where 'Dragon Quest Monsters' originated from was 'Dragon Quest V,' where you had a monster befriending system as a main part: you could actually befriend monsters and have them fight on behalf of your party, as part of your party. — Yuji Horii

When you say 'mother' or 'father' you describe three different phenomena. There is the giant who made you and loomed over your early years; there is whatever more human-scale version might have been possible to perceive later and maybe even befriend; and there is the internalized version of the parent with whom you struggle- to appease, to escape, to be yourself, to understand and be understood by- and they make up a chaotic and contradictory trinity. — Rebecca Solnit

It's extraordinary how many people read a book that's new and weird and befriend it. — Junot Diaz

If we become addicted to the external, our interiority will haunt us. We will become hungry with a hunger no image, person, or deed can still. To be wholesome, we must remain truthful to our vulnerable complexity. In order to keep our balance, we need to hold the interior and exterior, visible and invisible, known and unknown, temporal and eternal, ancient and new, together. No one else can undertake this task for you. You are the one and only threshold of an inner world. This wholesomeness is holiness. To be holy is to be natural, to befriend the worlds that come to balance in you. — John O'Donohue

In Nita's experience, the best intelligence officers in any big family were found among the younger siblings. They began their careers while small, nonthreatening, and unobtrusive. By adolescence, they developed formidable powers of observation and recollection, to say nothing of an ability to lurk at keyholes and befriend the servants. — Grace Burrowes

What you resist will persist; what you befriend, you will transcend. — Robin Sharma

We can stage our own act on the planet-build our cities on its plains, dam its rivers, plant its topsoils-but our meaningful activity scarcely covers the terrain. We do not use the songbirds, for instance. We do not eat many of them; we cannot befriend them; we cannot persuade them to eat more mosquitoes or plant fewer weed seeds. We can only witness them-whoever they are. If we were not here, they would be songbirds falling in the forest. If we were not here, material events like the passage of seasons would lack even the meager meanings we are able to muster for them. The show would play to an empty house, as do all those falling stars which fall in the daytime. That is why I take walks: to keep an eye on things. — Annie Dillard

I saw this girl dancing, and I moved closer to her because I liked the way she looked, haughty and sexy but not in a slutty way, and when I got closer to her, I realized she was me and I was looking at my reflection in the mirror. I looked like the kind of girl I'd always wanted to befriend. — Rebecca Godfrey

Be loyal and trustworthy. Do not befriend anyone who is lower than yourself in this regard. — Confucius

But if we never hug a harlot, befriend a beggar, or forgive our enemy seventy times seven, then we confess grace with our lips but mock it with our lives. — Preston Sprinkle

Sheep can befriend a hungry wolf only for briefly. — Jim Butcher

I bleed words.
I dream in narrative.
I live in infinite worlds.
I befriend figmental characters.
I wish on stars in other galaxies.
I harvest stories from a brooding muse.
I bloom under moonlight in hushed seclusion.
I am a writer. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Tina: Oh, keep him? We don't keep them! Mr. Scamander, do you know anything about the wizarding community in America?

Newt: I do know a few things, actually. I know you have rather backwards laws about relations with non-magic people. That you're not meant to befriend them, that you can't marry them, which seems mildly absurd to me. — J.K. Rowling

Do not fight your negative emotions. Observe and befriend them. — Haemin Sunim

We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy. — Arthur Ashe

It is equally bad when one speeds on the guest unwilling to go, and when he holds back one who is hastening. Rather one should befriend the guest who is there, but speed him when he wishes. — Homer

1. "...All the complicated things in life can be settled over a cup of coffee. A person will tell more of their private life after one good cup of coffee, than after a magnum of Champagne or a quarter of port.." ((page 79)).

2. "..Care for the needy,comfort the distressed, befriend the rejected.." ((Simon's Testimony..page 464..))

3."..The man Jesus said that was wrong and offered the sick the courage to become well, the weak the ability to grow a strong spirit, and nonbelievers the chance to believe.." ((Simon's Testimony..page 461)) — Steve Berry

The men in the nearby village fear us, thinking we are witches. Women who live without men - especially old women who grow herbs, heal the sick, and befriend wild animals - are always suspect. — Pat Murphy

The epidemic So many people are frozen in the face of uncertainty and paralyzed at the thought of shipping work that matters that one might think that the fear is hardwired into us. It is. Scientists can identify precisely where your lizard brain lives. This is your prehistoric early brain, the same brain that's in the lizard or the deer. Filled with fear, intent on reproduction. Steven Pressfield gives the voice of the lizard brain a name: he calls it the resistance. And the resistance is talking to you as you read this, urging you to compromise, to not be an troublemaker, to avoid rash moves. For many of us, the resistance is always chattering away, frequently sabotaging our best opportunities and ruining our best chance to do great work. Naming it helps you befriend it, and befriending it helps you ignore it. — Seth Godin

Because (grandparents) are usually free to love and guide and befriend the young without having to take daily responsibility for them, they can often reach out past pride and fear of failure and close the space between generations. — Jimmy Carter

This morning the world by moonlight seemed to be an immemorial acquaintance I had always meant to befriend. If there was ever a chance, it had passed. Strange to say, I feel a little that way about myself. — Marilynne Robinson

Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I contemplate the ardour with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute commercial enterprise, the advantages which befriend them, and the success of their undertakings, I cannot refrain from believing that they will one day become the first maritime power of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer the world. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Gradually it became known that the new race had a definite purpose, and that purpose was to chart and possess the whole country, regardless of the rights of its earlier inhabitants. Still the old chiefs cautioned their people to be patient, for, said they, the land is vast, both races can live on it, each in their own way. Let us therefore befriend them and trust their friendship. While they reasoned thus, the temptations of graft and self-aggrandizement overtook some of the leaders. — Charles Alexander Eastman

The solution, she advises, is, "when you meet a woman who is intimidatingly witty, stylish, beautiful, and professionally accomplished, befriend her. Surrounding yourself with the best people doesn't make you look worse by comparison. It makes you look better." Marital — Rebecca Traister

This place felt like home; not her home perhaps, but someone's home, accustomed to shelter and keep and befriend its master. — Robin McKinley

Proceed with caution when you befriend a writer, for if you fall out of their good graces they have the delightful capability of doing any number of dastardly things to you upon the written page. — Bonnie Daly

Like Teresa [of Avila], each of us is a mix of unseen strengths and conflicting desires. While it is easy to understand our suffering in terms of external difficulties, most of us aren't aware of the significant role we play in our own difficult dramas. Like Job, we rail against the heavens for sending us trials at times, while in actuality, our own [inner] shadow is our most formidable opponent. One of the keys to living deeply is to learn how to befriend our shadows instead of demonizing them. — Helen LaKelly Hunt

Weeks went by, then months. I am speaking of a far-away time - a vanished happiness. It fell to me to befriend, to console with whatever words I could find, one who had been the fairy, the princess, the mysterious love-dream of our adolescence - and it fell to me because my companion had fled. Of that period ... what can I say? I've kept a single image of that time, and it is already fading: the image of a lovely face grown thin and of two eyes whose lids slowly droop as they glance at me, as if her gaze was unable to dwell on anything but an inner world. — Alain-Fournier

The future exists only in our imagination
it is a collective story waiting for our voices to express
that can only happen when you and I are willing to enter the emptiness
listening in the silence
until we can begin to create a future we can befriend. — Dawna Markova

To be wholesome, we must remain truthful to our vulnerable complexity. In order to keep our balance, we need to hold the interior and exterior, visible and invisible, known and unknown, temporal and eternal, ancient and new, together. No one else can undertake this task for you. You are the one and only threshold of an inner world. This wholesomeness is holiness. To be holy is to be natural, to befriend the worlds that come to balance in you. Behind the facade of image and distraction, each person is an artist in this primal and inescapable sense. Each one of us is doomed and privileged to be an inner artist who carries and shapes a unique world. — John O'Donohue

There stood one, in physical proportion and stature commanding and exact - in intellect richly endowed - in natural eloquence a prodigy - in soul manifestly "created but a little lower than the angels" - yet a slave, ay, a fugitive slave, - trembling for his safety, hardly daring to believe that on the American soil, a single white person could be found who would befriend him at all hazards, for the love of God and humanity! Capable of high attainments as an intellectual and moral being - needing nothing but a comparatively small amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race - by the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless! — Anonymous

Reluctance to begin is quick to befriend procrastination ... — Kate Morton

I wish I could turn to the church for help, but so many congregations are preoccupied with keeping the lights on right now that the last thing they want to talk about is how to befriend the dark. — Barbara Brown Taylor

I befriend people too quickly - I don't think that's wrong, but I get told that I should be a bit more careful. — Nicole Appleton

Fear is only an enemy of those who have not learned to befriend its cause. — Sufian Chaudhary

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business. — Mahatma Gandhi

Now you are in the true world, and a great deal more is required of you. Here you must befriend real wolves, and lure real birds down from the sky. Here you must endure real people around you, and we are not uniformly kind; we are damaged and impulsive, each in our own way. It is harder. It is not safe. But it is what you were born to. — Margo Lanagan

You must befriend a few skeletons before you'll find your deepest self. — Curtis Tyrone Jones

The adventure of life is to learn. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change. The challenge of life is to overcome. The essence of life is to care. The opportunity of like is to serve. The secret of life is to dare. The spice of life is to befriend. The beauty of life is to give. — William Arthur Ward

I feel certain that his tale is true. Feeling that certainty, I befriend him. As long as that certainty shall last, I will befriend him. And if any consideration could shake me in this resolve, I should be so ashamed of myself for my meanness, that no man's good opinion - no, nor no woman's - so gained, could compensate me for the loss of my own. — Charles Dickens

Have a religion but don't let religion have you! Befriend God because you wanted to, not because they have said it to you. — Janina Lea Dela Pena

Will pointed a finger accusingly in their direction. "You're ganging up on me. Is this how it's going to be from now on? I'll be the odd man out? Dear God, I'll have to befriend Jessamine."
"Jessamine can't stand you," Jem pointed out.
"Henry, then."
"Henry will set you on fire. — Cassandra Clare

As for people who are politically backward, Communists should not slight or despise them, but should befriend them, unite with them, convince them and encourage them to go forward. — Mao Zedong

For heartsickness of the unending variety, befriend a dove. Do not catch it, not even so that you can set it free. Just get down on the ground with bread crumbs on your chest and wait for it to find you interesting. — Ramona Ausubel

You try and nurture the relationship. This day and age we have to do a little more networking than we used to do. All that does is make sure you befriend the people you are working with on a project so you hopefully carry it over to the next one. — Aaron Zigman

The gold of her promise
has never been mined

Her borders of justice
not clearly defined

Her crops of abundance
the fruit and the grain

Have not fed the hungry
nor eased that deep pain

Her proud declarations
are leaves on the wind

Her southern exposure
black death did befriend

Discover this country
dead centuries cry

Erect noble tablets
where none can decry

"She kills her bright future
and rapes for a sou

Then entraps her children
with legends untrue"

I beg you

Discover this country

from America — Maya Angelou

The message of Jesus is summed up partly in the Sermon on the Mount, and partly when he begins his ministry and quotes the passage from Isaiah: 'I have come to set free the prisoners and restore sight to the blind.' And certainly, his mission is also to bring hope. It was to heal people, to befriend the outcast. — Dan Wakefield

I don't believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone, not necessarily. I think it's about two things: learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion, which can and should be resisted. — Olivia Laing

That's what I said the first time I was called a hero. But you're going to find that hero is a title other people give you; you don't really get a say in the matter. Now me, I'm the kind of hero that slays the dragon. I overthrew the ArchTyrant and ended the age of Ragnarok..." he trailed off, his eyes distant. "...of course, ever since then I have been unable to reform the beauracrats and the nobles. Despite my best efforts, they beat me in the end." He cleared his throat and looked up. "Now you, on the other hand, you are a different kind of hero. You take the dragon home with you. You feed it, teach it, tame it, befriend it. You remove the threat by changing its heart, rather than actually slaying the beast — Aaron Lee Yeager

We are born to be ourselves-in need of upgrading the gene-to look back again and again and befriend the person we once intended to become. — Joan Anderson

When some portion of the biosphere is rather unpopular with the human race-a crocodile, a dandelion, a stony valley, a snowstorm, an odd-shaped flint-there are three sorts of human being who are particularly likely still to see point in it and befriend it. They are poets, scientists and children. Inside each of us, I suggest, representatives of all these groups can be found. — Mary Midgley

Role models can inspire. Campaigns can motivate. But if we want all girls everywhere to rise up, then we must find them, befriend them and support them. — Queen Rania Of Jordan

You are pure-hearted, Branza, and lovely, and you have never done a moment's wrong. But you are a living creature, born to make a real life, however it cracks your heart. However sweet that other place was, it was not real. It was an artifact of your mam's imagination; it was a dream of hers and a desire; you could not have stayed there forever and called yourself alive. Now you are in the true world, and a great deal more is required of you. Here you must befriend real wolves, and lure real birds down from the sky. Here you must endure real people around you, and we are not uniformly kind; we are damaged and impulsive, each in our own way. It is harder. It is not safe. But it is what you were born to. (357) — Margo Lanagan

A mafia could never kill an alliance. That's how you become safe from the enemy, you befriend them. — Basma Salem

As we befriend our crush and get to know him better, make sure that you are honest and true all the time. Do not be someone you are not just to impress him. — Angus T. Jones

I am extremely proud of my rags-to-riches story. It's fun to be a misfit or an underdog if you acknowledge your gifts and befriend your obstacles. — Kangana Ranaut

If a fox is unable to befriend a tiger, then the fox should create an illusion of close association with the tiger by carefully trailing behind the cat while boasting of the deep friendship they share. In this way, he creates an impression that his well being is of great concern to the tiger. — Chin-Ning Chu

When you unfriend the people you need, soon you will have to befriend the people you don't need — Ankur Singh Yadav

When the sweet ache of being alive, lodged between who you are and who you will be, is awakened, befriend this moment. It will guide you. Its sweetness is what holds you. Its ache is what moves you on. — Mark Nepo

Love frees us of all pain, or of any restraint.
Once a circle that ever widens without end.
Various colors it shines in our lives to paint
Excelsis, glorious manifestation to befriend. — Ana Claudia Antunes

Praise to the Lord 1 Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation! O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation! All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near; Join ye in glad adoration! 2 Praise to the Lord, Who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth, Shieldeth thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth! Hast thou not seen how thy desires e'er have been Granted in what He ordaineth? 3 Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee; Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee. Ponder anew what the Almighty can do, If with His love He befriend thee. — J.J.

Each day befriend a single fear, and the miscellaneous terrors of being human will never join together to form such a morass of vague anxiety that it rules your life from the shadows of the unconscious. We learn to fly not by being fearless, but by the daily practice of courage. — Sam Keen

Mortals, while through the world you go,
Hope may succor and faith befriend,
Yet happy your hearts if you can but know,
Love awaits at the journey's end! — Clinton Scollard

There'll be the lightning bugs with their Morse code display,
And shooting stars and constellations to befriend;
The dragonflies will keep us from going astray,
As we search for new adventures 'round every bend.
-excerpted from the poem 'The Huge Playroom that is Nature' in the book FROM GUAM TO CROWN CITY CORONADO (THANKS TO HERMANN, MISSOURI): A JOURNEY IN POESY — Mariecor Ruediger

I really have to befriend this asshole?" I whispered harshly to Dilmore "Yep."
"Well thanks Dilmore this is going to turn out swell. — Charon Lloyd-Roberts

And you should never befriend something if there's a possibility it may take a fancy to eating you in your sleep. — Fredrik Backman

Contrary to popular wisdom, bullies are rarely cowards.
Bullies come in various shapes and sizes. Observe yours. Gather intelligence.
Shunning one hopeless battle is not an act of cowardice.
Hankering for security or popularity makes you weak and vulnerable.
Which is worse: Scorn earned by informers? Misery endured by victims?
The brutal May have been molded by a brutality you cannot exceed.
Let guile be your ally.
Respect earned by integrity cannot be lost without your consent.
Don't laugh at what you don't find funny.
Don't support an opinion you don't hold.
The independent befriend the independent.
Adolescence dies in its fourth year. You live to be eighty. — David Mitchell

Make an enemy of certainty and befriend doubt. When you can change your mind, you can change anything. — Kevin Ashton

To befriend vampires
May mean to sacrifice blood
A very high cost — Debby Feo

Outer peace can only be manifested through inner peace for what goes on within us will manifest outwardly. It's important to take some time each day to go within to befriend our inner self
Sasha Samy — Sasha Samy

How do you tell your mom you're following your dream when it's the one that warned you to befriend a psychotic boy before he shoots up your school?
-- from the upcoming "Streaks of Blue — Jack Chaucer

My mother and father were married this way and are quite happy. I hope to find happiness, too. To find a woman that all of Illea can love, someone to be my companion and to help entertain the leaders of other nations. Someone who will befriend my friends and be my confidante. I'm ready to find my wife.
Something in his voice struck me. There wasn't a trace of sarcasm. This thing that seemed like little more than a game show to me was his only chance for happiness. He couldn't try with a second round of girls. Well, maybe he could, but how embarrassing. He was so desperate, so hopeful. I felt my distaste for him lessen. Marginally. — Kiera Cass

The humanitarian, like the missionary, is often an irreducible enemy of the people he seeks to befriend, because he has not imagination enough to sympathize with their proper needs nor humility enough to respect them as if they were his own. Arrogance, fanaticism, meddlesomeness, and imperialism may then masquerade as philanthropy. — George Santayana

We are so isolated here in Haworth, with no one of our own age to befriend, and the men and women of Verdopolis are real, in a way. It wouldn't seem strange to me if ... Someone ... Might even fall in love with one of them. — Lena Coakley

The poet would befriend and comfort himself, if only he could. — Edward Hirsch

Well, I could befriend her," Ten started, putting on an offended front as he pressed his hand to his chest.
Noel threw back his head and laughed.
"What?" Ten muttered, folding his arms over his chest and glaring. "I make a fucking awesome friend."
Noel's chuckle settled before he seemed to realize Ten was serious. His smile dropped flat. Pointing at Ten's nose, he growled. "Stay the fuck away from my sister."
Ten sent him a bland glance. "Why do you feel the need to say that to me in that exact tone every time you see me? — Linda Kage

Ego is something that you come to know - something that you befriend by not acting out or by repressing all the feelings that you feel. — Pema Chodron

When you care about perfection, you care about an expectation. But there is also caring for where I am right now, for what's happening right now. When I spend time with students, they tell me that they've read something in a book or heard something from a teacher that they don't think they're living up to. And I tell them, Take care of yourself right now. Befriend what's happening, not just who you're supposed to be or what the world should be like. This is where you are now. So how do you care for yourself this minute? — Bernie Glassman

There is little favorable to be said about poverty, but it was often an incubator of true friendship. Many people will appear to befriend you when you are wealthy, but precious few will do the same when you are poor. If wealth is a magnet, poverty is a kind of repellent. Yet, poverty often brings out the true generosity in others. — Nelson Mandela

Having a religion doesn't make a person love or not love others. It doesn't make a person accept or not accept others. It doesn't make a person befriend or not befriend others.
Being without a religion doesn't make somebody do or be any of that either.
No, what makes somebody love, accept, and befriend their fellow man is letting go of a need to be better than others.
Nothing else. — Dan Pearce

A man's genius seems to befriend the more when he reads with open heart, the masterpiece of masterminds, the sagacity of sages, and the ingenious words of geniuses of ages. — Ogwo David Emenike

Everything is support in our awakening. We've been conditioned to kvetch, kvetch, kvetch. Blame, blame, blame. One of the major ways that we don't stay present is blaming. We blame ourselves; we blame other people. I often see students blaming the outer circumstances or blaming their own bodies and minds for why they can't be present. Consider that what needs your attention and consideration is your own mind, and how you view these outer circumstances. You can befriend your circumstances; you can have compassion for your circumstances and for yourself. What happens when you do that? I recently — Pema Chodron

TALK TO ALL THOSE YOU MEET. BEFRIEND THE FRIENDLESS. SPEAK KINDLY. — Peter O'Malley