Quotes & Sayings About Friendliness

Its clear friendliness seemed to ring out audibly amid this appalling hush of the harmonies of life. "I wish you might know a day's friendliness or a day's freedom, yours without question, without condition, and till death." Here was the voice of nature, of appointed protection; the sound of it aroused her early sense of native nearness to her cousin; had he been at hand she would have sought a wholesome refuge in his arms. She sat down at her writing-table, with her brow in her hands, light-headed with her passionate purpose, steadying herself to think. A day's freedom had come at last; a lifetime's freedom confronted her. For, — Henry James

He showed me that there was another world where strangers helped strangers for no other reason than that it is good to do so, and where callousness was unusual, not the norm. — Hyeonseo Lee

When you're alone is when you can count your friends. — Stephen Richards

In this world we're all travelers on the same ship that has set sail from one unknown port en route to another equally foreign to us; we should treat each other therefore with the friendliness due to fellow travelers. — Fernando Pessoa

Peace can be promoted by the limitation of arms and by the creation of the instrumentality for peaceful settlement of controversies. But it will become a reality only through self-restraint and active effort in friendliness and helpfulness. — Herbert Hoover

The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything — E.B. White

The pretence leads up to the real thing. When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are. And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were. Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already. — C.S. Lewis

Learn to be friendly and learn to welcome all people, but note however in doing so that it is not every hand that is stretched towards you that deserves your handshake! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Between friends there is no need for justice, but people who are just still need the quality of friendship; and indeed friendliness is considered to be justice in the fullest sense. — Aristotle.

Clark Gable was the epitome of the movie star - so romantic, such bearing, such friendliness. — Elizabeth Taylor

The greatest missionary tool we have is that of demonstrating friendliness, brotherly kindness, harmony, love and peace in our homes and in all our church meetings. — Theodore M. Burton

If what you know no longer matters, the ministry cannot help but be another "helping profession" whose task is to attract people to church because of the appealing personality of the minister and the friendliness of the congregation. — Stanley Hauerwas

As your silence grows; your friendliness, your love grows; your life becomes a moment-to-moment dance, a joy, a celebration. — Rajneesh

In American tradition a certain kind of, I would say, desperate American friendliness in which the poet tries to reach out through the page to make a connection by the side of the road with some other person. — Edward Hirsch

My attitude towards the British is one of utter friendliness and respect. — Mahatma Gandhi

During these years in the small-talk wilderness, I also wondered why Americans valued friendliness with commerce so much. Was handing over cash the sacred rite of American capitalism - and of American life? On a day that I don't spend money in America, I feel oddly depressed. It's my main form of social interaction - as it is for millions of Americans who live alone or away from their families. — Karan Mahajan

The problem is not software 'friendliness'. It is conceptual clarity. A globe does not say, 'good morning'. It is simple and clear, not 'friendly'. — Ted Nelson

I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and still go further. So, too, with the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, etc. This does not mean syncretism, indifferentism, the vapid and careless friendliness that accepts everything by thinking of nothing. There is much that one cannot 'affirm' and 'accept,' but first one must say 'yes' where one really can. If I affirm myself as a Catholic merely by denying all that is Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, etc., in the end I will find there is not much left for me to affirm as a Catholic; and certainly no breath of the Spirit with which to affirm it. — Gustav Niebuhr

Friendliness is next to godliness. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Cow-protection can only be secured by cultivating universal friendliness, i.e. ahimsa. — Mahatma Gandhi

Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. It is an entirely "neighbor-regarding concern for others," which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friend and enemy; it is directed toward both. If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend's own sake. Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The car drives through, stops while the man closes and fastens the prickly gate behind it. The bell shuts off; the stillness is deafening by contrast. The car goes on until the outline of a house suddenly uptilts the searching headlight-beams, log-built, sprawling, resembling a hunting-lodge. But there's no friendliness to it. There is something ominous and forbidding about its look, so dark, so forgotten, so secretive-looking. The kind of a house that has a maw to swallow with - a one-way house, that you feel will never disgorge any living thing that enters it. Leprous in the moonlight festering on its roof. And the two round sworls of light played by the heads of the car against its side, intersecting, form a pear-shaped oval that resembles a gleaming skull. ("Jane Brown's Body") — Cornell Woolrich

Never trust a man whom you know to have acted like a scoundrel to others, whatever friendliness he may profess to feel towards yourself, however plausible he may be, or however kindly he may behave; be sure that, the moment he has anything to gain by so doing, he will "throw you over." — Charlie Day

Life is a mirror, it reflects your face. Be friendly, and all of life will reflect friendliness. — Rajneesh

Perception of friendliness differs from one culture to another. While it is true that people of one country may tend to be more spontaneously friendly to strangers than people of another country, I have found friendly people everywhere in the world, especially if I tried to make the first gesture. — Clifford A.L. Becker

When we make friends then we change from being animals to being human. — Stephen Richards

Kago did not know that human beings could be as easily felled by a single idea as by cholera or the bubonic plague. There was no immunity to cuckoo ideas on Earth. *** And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: "Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I had never been with a woman for longer than a night, and they had always been whores. And while throughout each of these speedy encounters I tried to maintain a friendliness with the women, I knew in my heart it was false, and afterward always felt remote and caved in. I had in the last year or so given up whores entirely, thinking it best to go without rather than pantomime human closeness. — Patrick DeWitt

It was not a friendly game, and Jerry certainly did not have friendliness in his eyes. He had an extra mean streak that day. He was out of control and probably should have been ejected. — Roger Staubach

His mother had always been a headstrong woman, and with her grayish-white mane and unsmiling face, she appeared as regal and intimidating as she had ever been. Still, seeing her through other people's eyes, Hanfeng realized that all that made her who she was - the decades of solitude in her widowhood, her coldness to the prying eyes of people who tried to mask their nosiness with friendliness, and her faith in the notion of living one's own life without having to go out of one's way for other people - could be deemed pointless and laughable. Perhaps the same could be said of any living creature: a caterpillar chewing on a leaf, unaware of the beak of an approaching bird; an egret mesmerized by its reflection in a pond, as if it were the master of the universe; or Hanfeng's own folly of repeating the same pattern of hope and heartbreak, hoping despite heartbreak. — Yiyun Li

If I knew you and you knew me- If both of us could clearly see, And with an inner sight divine The meaning of your heart and mine I'm sure that we would differ less And clasp our hands in friendliness: Our thoughts would pleasantly agree, If I knew you and you knew me. — Nixon Waterman

He was a compact, clearcut man, with precise features, a lot of very soft black hair, and thoughtful dark brown eyes. He had a look of wariness, which could change when he felt relaxed or happy, which was not often in these difficult days, into a smile of amused friendliness and pleasure which aroused feelings of warmth, and something more, in many women. — A.S. Byatt

Only friendliness produces friendship. And we must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces friendliness. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

It's one thing to be a high achiever; it's quite another to privately sneer at your girlfriend's friends after feigning friendliness because they have the "misfortune" to drive a bus for a living. — Mallory Ortberg

Kindliness, friendliness, the courtesy of the heart, are ever-flowing streams of non egoistic impulses, and have given far more powerful assistance to culture than even those much more famous demonstrations which are called pity, mercy, and self-sacrifice. — Friedrich Nietzsche

She was drowning - in friendliness, in community - and she was starting to think she didn't want to get pulled out. — Tricia Goyer

Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings. — Jack Kornfield

Bland friendliness is easier than spending even one joule of energy formulating an opinion on someone fundamentally irrelevant to you. — Elan Mastai

The strongest inpression remaining with me after watching the wolves ... was their friendliness towards each other. — Adolph Murie

The mature man lives quietly, does good privately, takes responsibility for his actions, treats others with friendliness and courtesy, finds mischief boring and avoids it. Without the hidden conspiracy of goodwill, society would not endure an hour. — Kenneth Rexroth

Nonetheless, as Katharine knew, they were having a splendid time, especially because of their work, but also in good measure because of the "Kitty Hawkers," whose consistent friendliness and desire to be of help, whose stories and ways of looking at life and expressing their opinions, made an enormous difference. The brothers were now hearing, as they had not before, words like "disremember" for "forget" and such expressions as "I'll not be seeing you tomorrow," or smooth water described being "slick calm." "Hoi toide" was "high tide. — David McCullough

Loyalty is earned with friendliness, responsiveness, ease of doing business, fair value, and the good feeling customers get when they call you, visit you, or interact with you. — Jeffrey Gitomer

So, for a variety of reasons, ranging from convenience to fear to economics, people stayed in their own neighborhood, loving it, enjoying the closeness, the friendliness, the familiarity, and trying to save enough money to move out. — Mike Royko

New York is a much more bourgeois city, more of a tourist attraction than a muscular metropolis. It's lost moxie and a rough energy, while gaining grace and friendliness. I love both versions of the city, but I wish the prosperous Manhattan would become a little easier for young people to afford. — Rafael Yglesias

The quiet gravity really wasn't his style at all, which had always been both needy and dour; anxious to be liked, but incapable of taking friendliness for granted. A burden of the hugely rich. — Ian McEwan

I'll give you a hint," the woman said with a smile that held no friendliness at all. "You've slept with my husband."
"That doesn't winnow the field down as much as you think it would. — Tiffany Reisz

Passion and platonic friendliness, often contrary siblings, frequently wear similar faces to hide the great distance between them. — Darin Strauss

Everything is unfolding based on causes and conditions. Our happiness or suffering is dependent on how we relate to the present moment. If we cling now, we suffer later. If we let go and respond with compassion or friendliness, we create happiness and well-being for the future. — Noah Levine

My favourite things are jokes, friendliness and feeling comfortable. — Billy Childish

The old man slowly raised himself from the piano stool, fixed those cheerful blue eyes piercingly and at the same time with unimaginable friendliness upon him, and said: Making music together is the best way for two people to become friends. There is none easier. That is a fine thing. I hope you and I shall remain friends. Perhaps you too will learn how to make fugues, Joseph. — Hermann Hesse

We should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. We should never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if there were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. We should not meet thus in haste. — Henry David Thoreau

A person imbued with compassion and self-understanding can readily love oneself and exhibit endless sympathy for all people. A person who is unkind to their self can never transcend their corrupt barriers much less run into the world with open arms enthusiastically embracing humankind and all of nature with uninhibited friendliness and goodwill. — Kilroy J. Oldster

She could not meet another brand-new group of mothers. She'd found socializing with the school mums difficult enough when her life was in perfect order. The chat, chat, chat, the swirls of laughter, the warmth, the friendliness (most mums were so very nice) and the gentle hint of bitchiness than ran beneath it all. She'd — Liane Moriarty

Hatred of oppression still distorts the features,
Anger at injustice still makes voices raised and ugly.
Oh we, who wished to lay for the foundations for peace and friendliness,
Could never be friendly ourselves. — Bertolt Brecht

Life works on the same principle as a boomerang. It's simple, really - what you send out you get back. A smiling face receives many smiles. Friendliness finds itself surrounded by friends. Giving hugs creates hugs. Offered help is reciprocated. In contrast, if you hurt people you will find much hurt in your life. Unkindness begets unkindness. Misery begets misery. A dour face will receive many sour looks in response. That said, it is easy to understand that if you want a happy life you must contribute to the happiness of those around you. — Richelle E. Goodrich

We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family. — Desmond Tutu

I like to smile. I smile even when I'm nervous since it calms me down and shows my friendliness. — Yani Tseng

She took care of evyone with the same no-nonsense air of friendliness and good cheer that made her seem so paradoxically wholesome, as if she were convinced that being a slut and being a really nice person were just two things that naturally went together. — Tom Perrotta

A friendliness, as of dwarfs shaking hands, was in the air... — E. M. Forster

Bye-bye love, as in songs. All alone now. It was so sad. Why did such things have to disintegrate like that? Why did longing and desire, and friendliness and goodwill too, have to shatter into pieces? Why did they have to be so thoroughfully over?
I could make myself cry even more by repeating the key word: love,alone, sad, over. I did it on purpose. — Margaret Atwood

One of the greatest gifts in this world is the ability to make others smile. - The Unauthorized Autobiography of Jonathan Fisher — J.E.B. Spredemann

Penny Tweedy took over the running of The Meadow as a businesswoman, with a tough attitude...Behind the Cheer smile and the porcelain sparkle of her teeth, behind the radiance and the friendliness and the warmth--behind all the charm, gentility, and good Episcopalianism--was a mind with a thermostat idling at sixty degrees. — William Nack

It was the most popular tree-buying destination in Asheville. Lots were everywhere in the mountains of North Carolina - this was Christmas-tree-farm country, after all - so to distinguish themselves, the Drummonds offered friendliness and tradition and atmosphere. And free organic hot apple cider. Asheville loved anything organic. It was that type of town. — Stephanie Perkins

The man had all the warmth, all the friendliness, of a pinecone. — Susan May Warren

I don't think he likes girls", I said. "Or boys. Look at the horror on his face. He doesn't look like a people person. — Sarah Rees Brennan

One of the attributes Glasgow is best known for all over the world is the friendliness of her people. — Nicola Sturgeon

Friendship is a relationship, friendliness is a state of your being. You are simply friendly; to whom, that is not the point ... — Rajneesh

Relationships are the oxygen of the psyche. — Jane Fonda

Sometimes the feeling would sneak up on me over a number of days: friendliness, tenderness, slowly growing in the hothouse of my introspection, swelling into something more beautiful and dangerous: a kind of euphoric enchantment. Sadly, this state never lasted more than a couple of days. Because pretty soon, hope-that sly, insinuating monster-would creep into my heart. — Sam Taylor

The very best way in all the world to overcome self-consciousn ess and shyness is to get interested in other people and to think of them and, almost miraculously, your timidity will pass. Do something for other people. Practice deeds of kindness, acts of friendliness, and you'll be surprised to see what happens. — Dale Carnegie

Half smiling, with imperturbable brightness and friendliness, the Buddha looked steadily at the stranger and dismissed him with a hardly visible gesture. 'You are clever, O Samana,' said the Illustrious One, 'you know how to speak cleverly, my friend. Be on your guard against too much cleverness. — Hermann Hesse

Friendliness, cheerfulness, and everything that a smile is supposed to express, become automatic responses which one turns on and off like an electric switch. — Erich Fromm

That was the wonderful thing about New York: Years of bad blood could be wiped out with a single gesture of friendliness. — Candace Bushnell

The utterance of God is a lamp, whose light is these words: Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Deal ye one with another with the utmost love and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship ... So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth. — Baha'u'llah

The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. — Grover Cleveland

He sincerely was beautiful.His smile,his wit,his friendliness and ease,his laughter-they all exuded such beauty.How could one look at him and not think him wonderful? — Jenni James

The keynote of American civilization is a sort of warm-hearted vulgarity. The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt. — Raymond Chandler

The more compassionate you are, the more generous you can be. The more generous you are, the move loving friendliness you cultivate to help the world. — Nhat Hanh

There is an easy way to measure our inner levels of abjectness and friendliness to ourselves: we should examine how well we response to noise. — Alain De Botton

The still lake without ripples is an image of our minds at ease, so full of unlimited friendliness for all the junk at the bottom of the lake that we don't feel the need to churn up the waters just to avoid looking at what's there. — Pema Chodron

The Western World is very strict on culture In Asian countries like Saudi Arabia, the pressure to keep a certain personal distance is not as heavy. It does not matter whether you are familiar to them or a stranger, Saudi Arabians will always keep a close distance to you whenever interacting. This can be attributed to the Islamic influence which is known to offer some friendliness. The biggest part of the Asian continent is dominated by Muslims who are known to be friendlier than even Christians. China is another country of the world where people are — Josh Cantrell

In sitting meditation, we train in mindfulness and unconditional friendliness: in being steadfast with our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts. — Pema Chodron

Winning friends begins with friendliness. — Dale Carnegie

A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance. — Henry David Thoreau

Smile at people everywhere you go. Don't just give them one of those half-smirk/head nod things. Raise your eyebrows, show those teeth, and chuckle while you smile. Next time you're at the store, give a full-hearted smile to at least three complete strangers. You'll be amazed at what this does for them and for you. — Dan Pearce

I don't mean being famous is a perk, because one knows that it's not necessarily a perk, but there are certain perks to being well-known and respected in one's field. Public perks. Like, I don't know, general friendliness and willingness to please, just to point out two. — Emma Thompson

American life is based on a reassurance that we like one another but won't violate one another's privacies. This makes it a land of small talk. Two people greet each other happily, with friendliness, but might know each other for years before venturing basic questions about each other's backgrounds....In the East, I've heard it said, there's intimacy without friendship; in the West, there's friendship without intimacy. — Karan Mahajan

The most valuable gift you can receive is an honest friend. — Stephen Richards

All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost ... Each human soul has in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind. — G.K. Chesterton

Brotherly love is not a tangible commodity. We cannot touch it or weigh it, smell it of taste it. Yet it is a reality; it can be creative, it can be fostered, it can be made a dynamic power. The Master who has it in his Lodge and his brethren will find that Lodge and brethren give it back to him. The Master too worried over the cares of his office to express friendliness need never wonder why his Lodge seems too cold to his effort. — Carl H. Claudy

If you treat people with dignity, respect and friendliness, you can turn enemies into friends. An enemy is nothing but a friend in disguise. — Ted Turner

Long ago, in a burst of friendliness, Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry ... — Harper Lee

You can say anything with a Post-It.
I'm not entirely sure why that is.
Maybe the friendliness of the squares makes it easier. A square is nicely compact and less intimidating than a full page.
And they come in cheerful colors. Non-white paper is kind of inherently festive.
Or maybe paper that sticks feels more important than paper that can blow away.
(Though you can move them, if you need to put them somewhere else.)
They might not be as lasting as words carved in stone, but Post-It thoughts will stay.
For awhile, at least. — Erin Morgenstern

I loved the solar smile he would turn on his friends at times
and on me
nonplussing us when he simply left it on us, full-beam, for such a long, long moment that we'd finally have no choice but to realize this was no social smile, no rote kind of friendliness: this was what it felt like to be completely seen and loved for a moment. — David James Duncan

'Bloody' has now become an important indicator of Australianness and of cultural values such as friendliness, informality, laid-backness, mateship - and perhaps even the Australian dislike and distrust of verbal and intellectual graces — Kate Burridge

With you a part of me hath passed away;
For in the peopled forest of my mind
A tree made leafless by this wintry wind
Shall never don again its green array.
Chapel and fireside, country road and bay,
Have something of their friendliness resigned;
Another, if I would, I could not find,
And I am grown much older in a day.
But yet I treasure in my memory
Your gift of charity, and young hearts ease,
And the dear honour of your amity;
For these once mine, my life is rich with these.
And I scarce know which part may greater be,
What I keep of you, or you rob from me. — George Santayana

If you stand for great service, low prices, superb quality, stylish design and environmental friendliness, you actually stand for nothing. — Josh Linkner

O kindle the fire of happiness ! Therein I shall see The door of friendliness, The room of greatness And the palace of godness. I shall see, I shall see. — Sri Chinmoy

My prose can be dense. I love to pile on detail. I love to describe. I'm much more reluctant to give the reader entrance into a character's feeling than describe what's around him or her and have the reader intuit the internal life of a character. I know that's demanding, so this was a gesture of friendliness, maybe. It's like I'm saying to the reader, I know this is going to be more lyrical than maybe 70 percent of American readers want to see, but here's a bunch of white space for you to recover from that lyricism. — Anthony Doerr

Christmas is about community, collaboration, celebration. Done right, Christmas can be an antidote to the Me First mentality that has rebranded capitalism as neo-liberalism. The shopping mall isn't our true home, nor is it a public space, though, as libraries, parks, playgrounds, museums and sports facilities disappear, for many the fake friendliness of the mall is the only public space left, apart from the streets — Jeanette Winterson