Circle Of Friendship Quotes

Celebrate the people in your life who are there because they love you for no other reason than because you are YOU.

To think you could have been dreaming the cure for cancer," Blue said. "Look, Sargent," Ronan retorted, "I was gonna dream you some eye cream last night since clearly modern medicine's doing jack shit for you, but I nearly had my ass handed to me by a death snake from the fourth circle of dream hell, so you're welcome." Blue was appropriately touched. "Ah, thanks, man." "No problem, bro.

The only true test of friendship is the time your friend spends on you.

I have known her longer, my smile said. True, you have been inside the circle of her arms, tasted her mouth, felt the warmth of her, and that is something I have never had. But there is a part of her that is only for me. You cannot touch it, no matter how hard you might try. And after she has left you I will still be here, making her laugh. My light shining in her. I will still be here long after she has forgotten your name.

...it's only on a black day that you begin to have friends.

How rare were the tears of a dragon. We once lived in paradise and because of the corruption of an angel disgused as a dragon, all the world was cast into darkness. Now, as humans, we shed many tears-for what was lost, for what might of been, and for the end of friendships. Goodbye my true friends.

A circle of friends, doesn't always keep perfect relationships.

I'll never understand the friendships Charlie has. Friendships where it doesn't take cash or hookups, or saying the right things to stay in the circle. No, Charlie's friendships are different. She tries to protect her people, and they in turn protect her. They accept each other's imperfections and support one another. My friends weren't like her friends, which makes me wonder if I ever had any at all.

In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together; each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day's walk have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze and our drinks are at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life — natural life — has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it?

Alone among unsympathetic companions, I hold certain views and standards timidly, half ashamed to avow them and half doubtful if they can after all be right. Put me back among my Friends and in half an hour - in ten minutes - these same views and standards become once more indisputable. The opinion of this little circle, while I am in it, outweighs that of a thousand outsiders: as Friendship strengthens, it will do this even when my Friends are far away. For we all wish to be judged by our peers, by the men "after our own heart." Only they really know our mind and only they judge it by standards we fully acknowledge. Theirs is the praise we really covet and the blame we really dread.

Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together,

Two main categories of people are needed in your circle; those who give you the necessary support to accomplish your dreams and those who become beneficiaries of what you achieve.

Anam is the Irish word for “soul” and Ċara is the word for “friend.” In the Anam-Ċara friendship, you were joined in an ancient way with the friend of your soul. This was a bond that neither space nor time could damage. The friendship awakened an eternal echo in the hearts of the friends; they entered into a circle of intimate belonging with each other. The Anam-Ċara friendship afforded a spiritual space to all the other longings of the human heart.

I loved her more than she loved me, that was the problem. A basic imbalance. Relationships like that never last, however hard you try. And now she's pregnant and in love with a man who'll never love her the way she loves him. It's a series of vicious circles, and the only way to stop it is to find someone who loves you the same. No power struggle. No insecurities. Just friendship. Because you can never be friends with someone if you love them too much.

Who you allow into the circle of your life will make the difference in the quality of your life.

Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.

The cult of friendship disturbs me. It's like our quality is supposed to be measured by the number of friends we have. For me, it's quite the inverse. When somebody says "I'm friends with everyone" I just assume they have the spine of your average jellyfish and the integrity of your average soap dish. "I have tons of close friends!" Ok, then you obviously have no standards. "I've slept with lots of people!" Good, I will shake your hand from inside this Hazmat suit. It's like you have to have friends or you're nothing, and you gotta have lots of friends, and the more friends you have the more value you have. This Is a way of lowering our standards to fit in. I'm a big fan of quality over quantity. Everyone wants to look at their life like it's a beer commercial they can just climb into. The larger the circle of friends the more alcohol is involved to blind yourself to the fact that you cant stand most of these assholes.

Leaves will fall, cold will creep in A circle of life that ends where it begins It may take a thousand years and a thousand poems penned But my hair will someday gray and my back will bend— Then my shadow will join my body in the earth once again. I know not the way, or even the when Or who chooses that day we’re called away to ascend But you bathed me in your bravery and forgave me my sins You made a home in your heart for mine to live in— And in return, my friend, this poem is my oath that a river of love will run through it until the very end.

If you’re so far down the totem pole that someone considers it a favor to you just to have you in their circle (no matter how far outside the ring you are), you should probably cut them out of yours.

We're just frisking like little captive lambkins.

As your life evolves, so should your circle.

Rather than be content with the circle of love within the Godhead, God reached out to create so that others could enter this sphere of intimacy and be warmed by divine love . . . Creation was God's plan for friendship. We were not brought into existence simply so that we could worship God. Nor were we created simply for service. Human beings exist because of God's desire for companionship.

A series of books, dilapidated and faded, sit bundled together. Most of the bindings are separating from the yellowed pages, but each is at home in its battered state. Their wrinkled pages and discolored skin tell not of old age, but of a good life. These books, unlike so many others, were not just read, but revisited, loved, and experienced.

Since the moment I saw her yesterday, I've been looking through the sparkly prism of exhilaration that comes with any old flame. But now, for the first time, I'm not just seeing what I want. I'm seeing what my friend needs.

You need to change your circle of friends if the ones you have keep trying to keep you in a box.

Come, come into this circle of grace and friendship. Come bringing only your open heart. You owe us nothing but truth, you need no heavy armor here. Show us your beautiful scars, the evidence of adventures you’ve survived. Tell your stories from the road. This space is home. You are safe to come as you are without fear.

Anyone can become your best friend when you spend time together and share your feelings about life. However, not every best friend can free you from yourself. This is when you reconsider the word "best" and decide to expand your circle to include others.

Right-wing women have surveyed the world: they find it a dangerous place. They see that work subjects them to more danger from more men; it increases the risk of sexual exploitation. They see that creativity and originality in their kind are ridiculed; they see women thrown out of the circle of male civilization for having ideas, plans, visions, ambitions. They see that traditional marriage means selling to one man, not hundreds: the better deal. They see that the streets are cold, and that the women on them are tired, sick, and bruised. They see that the money they can earn will not make them independent of men and that they will still have to play the sex games of their kind: at home and at work too. They see no way to make their bodies authentically their own and to survive in the world of men. They know too that the Left has nothing better to offer: leftist men also want wives and whores; leftist men value whores too much and wives too little. Right-wing women are not wrong. They fear that the Left, in stressing impersonal sex and promiscuity as values, will make them more vulnerable to male sexual aggression, and that they will be despised for not liking it. They are not wrong. Right-wing women see that within the system in which they live they cannot make their bodies their own, but they can agree to privatized male ownership: keep it one-on-one, as it were. They know that they are valued for their sex— their sex organs and their reproductive capacity—and so they try to up their value: through cooperation, manipulation, conformity; through displays of affection or attempts at friendship; through submission and obedience; and especially through the use of euphemism—“femininity, ” “total woman, ” “good, ” “maternal instinct, ” “motherly love. ” Their desperation is quiet; they hide their bruises of body and heart; they dress carefully and have good manners; they suffer, they love God, they follow the rules. They see that intelligence displayed in a woman is a flaw, that intelligence realized in a woman is a crime. They see the world they live in and they are not wrong. They use sex and babies to stay valuable because they need a home, food, clothing. They use the traditional intelligence of the female—animal, not human: they do what they have to to survive.

Never express anger with a friend or a subordinate in public,” Vedris always said. “They might forgive a private expression of anger or a deserved scolding, but they never forget a public humiliation. It is the surest way to destroy a friendship and to create enemies.

Heres the rundown: I'm crazy, you're crazy, we get along, we're best friends. if you break the friendship circle. I will come after you, I will find you and I will not hesitate to drop kick you to the ground in defence

If you don’t fit in someone’s circle, it’s because they’re afraid you’ll become the ring leader. Make your own circle.

Friendship is a two-way street...if you’re looking around your circle of “friends” and begin to realize that more than 98% of them are really just acquaintances, something has to change.

The deepest things that you need are not elsewhere. They are here and now in that circle of your own soul. Real friendship and holiness enable a person to frequently visit the hearth of his solitude;

I fell over twice. It was loud. The garden was black outside our circle of light. The endless night stretched all around us, so we told each other that we had to be close together, together in the dark.

An airport cannot choose to only accept arrivals and not departures; there are valid times for travel in both directions. I cannot force people to stay here longer, any more than I can force time to stand still.

A sword in one's hand can be used as a link to one's heart - you hurt only if you are hurt yourself and want others to share your pain, and you protect if you have strong bonds with others you want to maintain...

The Japanese have two words: "uchi" meaning inside and "soto" meaning outside. Uchi refers to their close friends, the people in their inner circle. Soto refers to anyone who is outside that circle. And how they relate and communicate to the two are drastically different. To the soto, they are still polite and they might be outgoing, on the surface, but they will keep them far away, until they are considered considerate and trustworthy enough to slip their way into the uchi category. Once you are uchi, the Japanese version of friendship is entire universes beyond the average American friendship! Uchi friends are for life. Uchi friends represent a sacred duty. A Japanese friend, who has become an uchi friend, is the one who will come to your aid, in your time of need, when all your western "friends" have turned their back and walked away.

If I'm a bad person, you don't like me Well I guess I'll make my own way It's a circle A mean cycle I can't excite you anymore Where's your gavel? Your jury? What's my offense this time? You're not a judge but if you're gonna judge me Well sentence me to another life Don't wanna hear your sad songs I don't wanna feel your pain When you swear it's all my fault Cause you know we're not the same (no) We're not the same (no) Oh we're not the same Yeah the friends who stuck together We wrote our names in blood But I guess you can't accept that the change is good (hey) It's good (hey) It's good Well you treat me just like another stranger Well it's nice to meet you sir I guess I'll go I best be on my way out You treat me just like another stranger Well it's nice to meet you sir I guess I'll go I best be on my way out Ignorance is your new best friend Ignorance is your new best friend This is the best thing that could've happened Any longer and I wouldn't have made it It's not a war no, it's not a rapture I'm just a person but you can't take it The same tricks that, that once fooled me They won't get you anywhere I'm not the same kid from your memory Well now I can fend for myself Don't wanna hear your sad songs I don't wanna feel your pain When you swear it's all my fault Cause you know we're not the same (no) We're not the same (no) Oh we're not the same Yeah we used to stick together We wrote our names in blood But I guess you can't accept that the change is good (hey) It's good (hey) It's good Well you treat me just like another stranger Well it's nice to meet you sir I guess I'll go I best be on my way out You treat me just like another stranger Well it's nice to meet you sir I guess I'll go I best be on my way out Ignorance is your new best friend Ignorance is your new best friend Ignorance is your new best friend Ignorance is your new best friend Well you treat me just like another stranger Well it's nice to meet you sir I guess I'll go I best be on my way out You treat me just like another stranger Well it's nice to meet you sir I guess I'll go I best be on my way out

The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.

A quilt circle's like a crazy quilt. You got all kinds in it. Some members are the big pieces of velvet or brocade, show-offish, while others are bitty scraps of used goods, hoping you don't notice them. But without each and every one, the quilt would fall apart. There's big and small, old and new, fancy and plain in a quilt circle. Some you like better than the others. We have our differences, and Monalisa is a trial, but it's a surprise how we all come together over the quilt frame, even Monalisa. We're as thick as a lettuce bed.

In crisis, I circled my wagons, more afraid of being disappointed by someone than going it alone.

It was as though God's hand was reaching down to Anna, and she was reaching her hands to Harvey and Joe, creating a circle of love.

How I respond to you says more about me than it does about you.

If someone you know knows something about you that you didn't tell 'em, reevaluate your circle.

It is like I am on a merry-go-round; it just keeps going in circles, round and round—and another go-round I go. When will I be able to get off?

Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together.

The Infinity sign goes round and round without an end, and true love bears the same pattern.

to shrink the circle of intimate community to the smallest possible circumference. This is the spoiling of faithful friendship.

You remember how he used to be girl on either arm? You really don't see that guy too much anymore. Why do you think that is? He's waiting for you. I know you're dealing with stuff but you cannot ask him to wait forever! Unless of course, you're okay with him pulling away." "What if it doesn't work out? What if it ends up like you and Javier?" "Well at least we gave it a shot. And so it didn't work out, so what? Now, we can move on give or take the occasional booty call." "I just don't wanna lose what we have, you know?" "Girl please! What exactly do you have, really?" "A friendship." "No. What you and I have is a friendship. What you and castle have is a holding pattern. How long can you circle before the fuel runs out?

And so, though Smith was not at all the man Knight would have deliberately chosen as a friend—or even for one of a group of a dozen friends—he somehow was his friend. Circumstance, as usual, did it all. How many of us can say of our most intimate alter ego, leaving alone friends of the outer circle, that he is the man we should have chosen, as embodying the net result after adding up all the points in human nature that we love, and principles we hold, and subtracting all that we hate? The man is really somebody we got to know by mere physical juxtaposition long maintained, and was taken into our confidence, and even heart, as a makeshift.

Paradoxically, it is friendship that often offers us the real route to the pleasures that Romanticism associates with love. That this sounds surprising is only a reflection of how underdeveloped our day-to-day vision of friendship has become. We associate it with a casual acquaintance we see only once in a while to exchange inconsequential and shallow banter. But real friendship is something altogether more profound and worthy of exultation. It is an arena in which two people can get a sense of each other’s vulnerabilities, appreciate each other’s follies without recrimination, reassure each other as to their value and greet the sorrows and tragedies of existence with wit and warmth. Culturally and collectively, we have made a momentous mistake which has left us both lonelier and more disappointed than we ever needed to be. In a better world, our most serious goal would be not to locate one special lover with whom to replace all other humans but to put our intelligence and energy into identifying and nurturing a circle of true friends. At the end of an evening, we would learn to say to certain prospective companions, with an embarrassed smile as we invited them inside – knowing that this would come across as a properly painful rejection – ‘I’m so sorry, couldn’t we just be … lovers?

It was perfect. The birds and the sky and the yellow leaves of Autumn. This was what it was, this life. It was tenuous and frail and yet fraught with beauty, and with beauty comes sadness. If you opt in to loving then you opt in to being human, to having your heart break a million times over. It's a circle of sorts. The more you go round the more laughter you find, the more laughter, the more joy, the more sadness. That is what life is. I felt something warm in my heart and I reached for Angus' hand.

Whoever has created An abiding friendship, Or has won A true and loving wife, All who can call at least one soul theirs, Join in our song of praise; But any who cannot must creep tearfully Away from our circle.

I’d just circle the room, because when you keep moving, people think you going somewhere, like you on a mission and shouldn’t be bothered. Like you busy. And that’s better than people realizing that you not busy at all. That you not okay with lunchrooms that don’t have trays, and that ain’t big enough spaces to disappear in, and that don’t stink of week-old dirty mop water, which I now know is the familiar smell of love and friendship.

The relationships flourish with exchanged respect, and not by pretending or beggary, as that expressing the opinions is the shortest way to build the bridges of confidence and expanding the circle of special relationships.

In our hurry-up, multiple-option, online society, we can always leave someone or something we find difficult—a person, a place, a church, a friendship. There is always another option. But real community, long-term friendship, and marriage are precious gifts only to be kept by a commitment to remain in the circle of love they create.

When we had finally become friends, when the four of us trusted each other enough to let the world surrounding us into our words, we whispered secrets. Pressed side by side by side, or sitting crossed legged in our newly tight circle. We opened our mouths and let the stories that had burned nearly to ash in our bellies finally live outside of us.

The most hurtful thing I have ever heard come from a friend is ' i think its best we cut all ties' see for them it was just a friendship for me it was like having to cut out a piece of my heart and do with out it. But i would rather live without someone than to have them in my inner circle when they would rather rather not have anything to do with me

And then I remembered something. Holy crap, I’d obviously been without magic for way too long to have forgotten one of the coolest spells I could do. “Stop!” I yelled.. Archer, Cal, and Jenna all skidded to a halt on the sand. I waved my hands at them to come closer. “Okay, everybody hold hands,” I said. Archer stared at me, one hand pressed to his bleeding chest. “Sophie, this really isn’t the time for a friendship circle.” “It’s not that,” I said. “It’s this.” I closed my eyes and channeled all my magic into a transportation spell. There was a rush of icy air, and then we were standing in the grove of trees that housed Hex Hall’s very own Itineris. “Wow,” Jenna breathed. “It is awesome to have you back.” Magic and satisfaction rushed through me. “You said it,” I agreed. “Now come on.” And with that, the four of us dove into the Itineris.

If you have seen your teacher only in school, it feels strange to come across them in a market. If you have seen your milkman or newspaper boy only at sunrise, it feels strange to see them in broad daylight when they come to collect payment. When a friend or loved one breaks away from your circle, it feels strange to see them in their new circle. It is not jealously. It is a spontaneous and neutral feeling. It turns into jealousy when it gets mixed with our fears and insecurities. Accept this feeling as-it-is before it turns into jealousy.

In the closed circle of the war cabinet, pounded by terrible report after terrible report, there had been uncertainty about whether he could fend off the drift to exploring a deal with Hitler. The determination of the larger group trumped the tentativeness of the smaller, and Churchill fulfilled his role as leader by disentangling himself from defeatism--one of his singular achievements at the end of May 1940.

Best not to look back. Best to believe there will be happily ever afters all the way around- and so there may be; who is to say there will to be such endings? Not all boats which sail away into darkness never find the sun again, or the hand of another child; if life teaches anything at all, it teaches that there are so many happy endings that the man who believes there is no God needs his rationality called into serious question… And if you spare a last though, maybe it’s ghosts you wonder about… the ghosts of children standing in the water at sunset, standing in a circle, standing with their hands joined together, their faces young, sure, but tough… tough enough, anyway, to give birth to the people they will become, tough enough understand, maybe, that the people they will become must necessarily birth the people they were before they can get on with trying to understand simple morality. The circle closes, the wheel rolls, and that’s all there is. You don’t have to look back to see those children; part of you mind wills them forever, live with them forever, love with them forever. They are not necessarily the best part of you, but were once the repository of all you could become. Children I love you. I love you so much. So drive away quick, drive away while the last of the light slips away,drive away from Derry, from memory… but not from desire. That stays, the bright cameo of all we were and all we believed as children, all that shone in our eyes even when we were lost and the wind blew in the night. Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand. All the rest is darkness.

Tshepo reckons that it is inevitable that one’s circle of friends will become smaller as one grows older. He reasons that when we begin we are similar, like two glasses of water sitting side by side on a clean tray. There is very little that differentiates us. We are simple beings whose interests do not extend beyond playing touch and kicking balls. However, like the two glasses of water forgotten on a tray in the reading room, we start to collect bits. Bits of fluff, bits of a broken beetle wing, bits of bread, bits of pollen, bits of shed epithelial cells, bits of hair, bits of toilet paper, bits of airborne fungal organisms, bits of bits. All sorts of bits. No two combinations the same. Just like with the glasses of water, Environment, jealous of our fundamentality, bombards our basic minds with complexity. So we become frighteningly dissimilar, until there is very little that holds us together.

Whoever doesn't love you doesn't know you.

I refuse to let past rejection, fears, insecurities, and previous losses stop me from being ready to receive this time.

Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together.

There can be different types of bonds in life, with different people. But, no bond is less important than the other. And no matter you may not have a certain kind of bond other people have, you can have other types of bonds those people cannot have. And there's more to it – when you don't have a certain type of needful bond, the other bonds you have formed with different people, all of them double (it is like, when one is born blind, their other four senses are doubled). So, I know it is hard, but you must not grieve over what you do not have. Instead, try to embrace what you already have. Do not feel alone or lost. What you are lacking, is added to other types of relationships, and of course, it may not feel the same way as it would if you had a certain bond, but it is not gone, it is still there, only, in another form... Preserve your bonds and fight to protect them – that is the path of a Blade Warrior...

That's how it was on Irving Circle and how I was raised: You made the best out of what was within reach, which meant friendships engineered by parents and by the happenstance of housing. I stayed with it because we both had queenly older sisters who rarely condescended to play with us, because Shelley was adopted and I was not, because Shelley had Clue and Life, and I did not

When we speak with others about our experience in Christ, it sharpens our attentiveness to the voice and will of the Father. Sharing our stories helps us clarify the intentions of our hearts toward the fulfillment of his divine will. A small circle of friends also reminds us of the presence, power and protection of the Holy Spirit. Confiding in one another instills a sense of hope for the future as children who are dearly loved by their Father.

For many of us who are still adjusting to the very real way that our friends becoming mothers often means 'losing' them as friends, yet another announcement can feel like a bell tolling on that friendship. We've heard our friends say to us, 'It's not going to change anything,' and we know that they mean it at the time, but they're probably going to move towards a new circle of friends who are mothers, and that's how it needs to be. And we're not mothers.

On the whiteboard next to him, the Sheikh drew a line. Next to it, he sketched a circle. The line represented your space, the environment in which you find yourself. The space could be anywhere - a well, a prison cell, a state ruled by a despot, or a foreign country. Next he pointed to the circle. That symbolised the cycle of a Muslim's life, the steady bit of night and day, ticking away, for as long as God chose to keep you on this earth. The space you found yourself in was not in your control, said Akram. The cycle was. Your circumstances were given to you by Allah; using the cycle of your days to practice taqwa, or love and awe of God, was your job. Tend to this cycle of faith, said Akram, rather than worrying about your circumstances.

ONE All the best things in my life have started with a Dolly Parton song. Including my friendship with Ellen Dryver. The song that sealed the deal was “Dumb Blonde” from her 1967 debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly. During the summer before first grade, my aunt Lucy bonded with Mrs. Dryver over their mutual devotion to Dolly. While they sipped sweet tea in the dining room, Ellen and I would sit on the couch watching cartoons, unsure of what to make of each other. But then one afternoon that song came on over Mrs. Dryver’s stereo. Ellen tapped her foot as I hummed along, and before Dolly had even hit the chorus, we were spinning in circles and singing at the top of our lungs. Thankfully, our love for each other and Dolly ended up running deeper than one song. I

One that has well digested his knowledge both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in the company of a few select companions. He feels too sensibly, how much all the rest of mankind fall short of the notions which he has entertained. And, his affections being thus confined within a narrow circle, no wonder he carries them further than if they were more general and undistinguished. The gaiety and frolic of a bottle companion improves with him into a solid friendship; and the ardours of a youthful appetite become an elegant passion.

In the various phases of my life...I became friends with some extraordinary people. In each of those phases, I became particularly close to a small circle of individuals, and I simply assumed that I would remain close with them forever. Because we were hanging out then, my thinking went, we'd hang out forever. But friendships, I've learned aren't like that. Things change; people change. Friends mature and move and get married and have children.... Over time, if you're lucky, a few--or maybe just a couple--remain from each of the various phases of your life. ...I sometimes find myself wondering why some people remain in your life while others drift away. I don't have an answer to that, other than to observe that friendship has to flow both ways. Both of you have to be willing to invest in the friends in order to maintain it. [Trevor Benson]

It is a sad but unavoidable fact of life that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces. So, I view it as an incredible stroke of good fortune at this stage in my life to have found such fine new friends(s).

Molly touches Vivian’s shoulder, frail and bony under her thin silk cardigan. She half turns, half smiles, her eyes brimming with tears. Her hand flutters to her clavicle, to the silver chain around her neck, the claddagh charm—those tiny hands clasping a crowned heart: love, loyalty, friendship—a never-ending path that leads away from home and circles back. What a journey Vivian and this necklace have taken, Molly thinks: from a cobblestoned village on the coast of Ireland to a tenement in New York to a train filled with children, steaming westward through farmland, to a lifetime in Minnesota. And now to this moment, nearly a hundred years after it all began, on the porch of an old house in Maine

The "friend" who consistently points out the flaws in your plan, or uses a magnifying glass to find the defect in your product, or constantly searches for the chink in your armor, is the "friend" praying for your downfall. Watch and listen for the signs. Know your circle. Real ones are cheering from the sidelines, not wishing it was them in the game.

You seem disappointed that I am not more responsive to your interest in "spiritual direction". Actually, I am more than a little ambivalent about the term, particularly in the ways it is being used so loosely without any sense of knowledge of the church's traditions in these matters. If by spiritual direction you mean entering into a friendship with another person in which an awareness and responsiveness to God's Spirit in the everydayness of your life is cultivated, fine. Then why call in an awkward term like "spiritual direction"? Why not just "friend"? Spiritual direction strikes me as pretentious in these circumstances, as if there were some expertise that can be acquired more or less on its own and then dispensed on demand. The other reason for my lack of enthusiasm is my well-founded fear of professionalism in any and all matters of the Christian life. Or maybe the right label for my fear is "functionalism". The moment an aspect of Christian living (human life, for that matter) is defined as a role, it is distorted, debased - and eventually destroyed. We are brothers and sisters with one another, friends and lovers, saints and sinners. The irony here is that the rise of interest in spiritual direction almost certainly comes from the proliferation of role-defined activism in our culture. We are sick and tired of being slotted into a function and then manipulated with Scripture and prayer to do what someone has decided (often with the help of some psychological testing) that we should be doing to bring glory to some religious enterprise or other. And so when people begin to show up who are interested in us just as we are - our souls - we are ready to be paid attention to in this prayerful, listening, non-manipulative, nonfunctional way. Spiritual direction. But then it begins to develop a culture and language and hierarchy all its own. It becomes first a special interest, and then a specialization. That is what seems to be happening in the circles you are frequenting. I seriously doubt that it is a healthy (holy) line to be pursuing. Instead, why don't you look over the congregation on Sundays and pick someone who appears to be mature and congenial. Ask her or him if you can meet together every month or so - you feel the need to talk about your life in the company of someone who believes that Jesus is present and active in everything you are doing. Reassure the person that he or she doesn't have to say anything "wise". You only want them to be there for you to listen and be prayerful in the listening. After three or four such meetings, write to me what has transpired, and we'll discuss it further. I've had a number of men and women who have served me in this way over the years - none carried the title "spiritual director", although that is what they have been. Some had never heard of such a term. When I moved to Canada a few years ago and had to leave a long-term relationship of this sort, I looked around for someone whom I could be with in this way. I picked a man whom I knew to be a person of integrity and prayer, with seasoned Christian wisdom in his bones. I anticipated that he would disqualify himself. So I pre-composed my rebuttal: "All I want you to do is two things: show up and shut up. Can you do that? Meet with me every six weeks or so, and just be there - an honest, prayerful presence with no responsibility to be anything other than what you have become in your obedient lifetime." And it worked. If that is what you mean by "spiritual director," okay. But I still prefer "friend". You can see now from my comments that my gut feeling is that the most mature and reliable Christian guidance and understanding comes out of the most immediate and local of settings. The ordinary way. We have to break this cultural habit of sending out for an expert every time we feel we need some assistance. Wisdom is not a matter of expertise. The peace of the Lord, Eugene

He grinned again. We'd only been seeing each other for a few weeks now, but this easy give-and-take still surprised me. From that very first day in my room, I felt like we'd somehow skipped the formalities of the Beginning of a Relationship: those awkward moments when you're not all over each other and are still feeling out the other person's boundaries and limits. Maybe this was because we'd been circling each other for a while before he finally catapulted through my window. But if I let myself think about it much - and I didn't - I had flashes of realising that I'd been comfortable with him even at the very start. Clearly, he'd been comfortable with me, grabbing my hand as he had that first day. As if he knew, even then, that we'd be here now.

The sooner Harkness stopped walking, the sooner he could stop walking. That was the simple truth. That was logic. But something went deeper, a truer, more frightening logic. Harkness was a part of the group that Garraty was a part of, a segment of his subclan. Part of a magic circle that Garraty belonged to. And if one part of that circle could be broken, any part of it could be broken.

{The resolution of the surviving members of the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, whom Robert Ingersoll was the commander of, at his funeral quoted here} Robert G. Ingersoll is dead. The brave soldier, the unswerving patriot, the true friend, and the distinguished colonel of the old regiment of which we have the honor to be a remanent, sleeps his last sleep. No word of ours, though written in flame, no chaplet that our hands can weave, no testimony that our personal knowledge can bring, will add anything to his fame. The world honors him as the prince of orators in his generation, as its emancipator from manacles and dogmas; philosophy, for his aid in beating back the ghosts of superstition; and we, in addition to these, for our personal knowledge of him, as a man, a soldier, and a friend. We know him as the general public did not. We knew him in the military camp, where he reigned an uncrowned king, ruling with that bright scepter of human benevolence which death alone could wrest from his hand. We had the honor to obey, as we could, his calm but resolute commands at Shiloh, at Corinth, and at Lexington, knowing as we did, that he would never command a man to go where he would not dare to lead the way. We recognize only a small circle who could know more of his manliness and worth than we do. And to such we say: Look up, if you can, through natural tears; try to be as brave as he was, and try to remember -- in the midst of grief which his greatest wish for life would have been to help you to bear -- that he had no fear of death nor of anything beyond.

At previous gatherings Magnus had observed in the boy’s watchful eyes that he was one of many who had a crush on Lucia and that he was waiting for the opportunity to spend time with her and solidify their . . . friendship. As Magnus did with many such suitors, he circled the boy like a sea monster, eyeing him with acute displeasure until beads of perspiration formed on the boy’s pale forehead.

Amoretta Morris, a wise woman I know who is rethinking philanthropy, wrote, "It's okay to ask for help. In fact, by doing so, you are taking part in the divine circle of giving and receiving. While we often focus on what the request means for the asker/recipient, we should remember that giving can be transformative for the helper....By not asking for help when you need it, you are blocking that flow.

Dear Circle of Life, The impression of you is so unique in the most exquisite ways. With you, there is a beginning and an end. You are the representation of birth and life. The in-between is survival, and the ending is death. The idea of life is just what it is when we arrive on the earth—our life is a circle, if you will, a 360. Once our wheels stop spinning, it rolls slowly until it completely stops.

The depth and intensity of the friendship will depend upon variety and extent of the things we do and enjoy together. Will the friendship be constant? That again depends upon the permanence of our common interests, and upon whether or not our interests grow into ever-widening circles, so that we do not stagnate. The highest friendship demands growth. “It must be progressive as life itself is progressive.” Friends must walk together; they cannot long stand still together, for that means death to friendship and to life.

People who think that queer life consists of sex without intimacy are usually seeing only a tiny part of the picture, and seeing it through homophobic stereotype. The most fleeting sexual encounter is, in its way intimate. And in the way many gay men and lesbians live, quite casual sexual relations can develop into powerful and enduring friendships. Friendships, in turn, can cross into sexual relations and back. Because gay social life is not as ritualized and institutionalized as straight life, each relation is an adventure in nearly un-charted territory—whether it is between two gay men, or two lesbians, or a gay man and a lesbian, or among three or more queers, or between gay men and the straight women whose commitment to queer culture brings them the punishment of the "fag hag" label. There are almost as many kinds of relationship as there are people in combination. Where there are -patterns, we learn them from other queers, not from our-parents or schools or the state. Between tricks and lovers and exes and friends and fuckbuddies and bar friends and bar friends' tricks and tricks' bar friends and gal pals and companions "in the life," queers have an astonishing range of intimacies. Most have no labels. Most receive no public recognition. Many of these relations are difficult because the rules have to be invented as we go along. Often desire and unease add to their intensity, and their unpredictability. They can be complex and bewildering, in a way that arouses fear among many gay people, and tremendous resistance and resentment from many straight people. Who among us would give them up? Try standing at a party of queer friends and charting all the histories, sexual and nonsexual, among the people in the room. (In some circles this is a common party sport already.) You will realize that only a fine and rapidly shifting line separates sexual culture from many other relations of durability and care. The impoverished vocabulary of straight culture tells us that people should be either husbands and wives or (nonsexual) friends. Marriage marks that line. It is not the way many queers live. If there is such a thing as a gay way of life, it consists in these relations, a welter of intimacies outside the framework of professions and institutions and ordinary social obligations. Straight culture has much to learn from it, and in many ways has already begun to learn from it. Queers should be insisting on teaching these lessons. Instead, the marriage issue, as currently framed, seems to be a way of denying recognition to these relations, of streamlining queer relations into the much less troubling division of couples from friends.

What I’ve learned from these long voyages of ours is that, in the end, we all strive for our own good. It does not matter what race we are, who we are… We have that one thing in common – the wish to live this life the best way possible. Hence, our definitions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ always remain subjective – no matter how many perspectives we consider, no matter how objective we try to be, we still judge according to our own beliefs, principles, and opinions – things that we develop throughout our entire life. In truth, nothing is either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but is both good and bad, all at the same time, depending on the perspective and the relation with other matters. This world is much more versatile than we thought it was. The only universal truth is the energy of life and love – the unending circle, and the undying emotion – interconnected for eternity. Life bears love, and love bears life. Hence, I believe that whatever era may come, major concepts shall never change. We should pave our way and live to our content, staying harmonious with ourselves, because in the end, we shall never know what is right and what is wrong. We interrelate just like the tiniest substances – molecules, atoms, etc. – and the biggest substances – planets, galaxies, universes… During these interrelations, there shall be unions as well as collisions, destructions as well as creations… As long as we live, there shall be both oppositions and friendships. There shall be peace, there shall be war, and then peace again. This shall not change. Hope will motivate us, mind shall guide us, love shall rejoice us, death shall sadden us, but life will go on. Life is always moving and ardent, never to stop or pause. This is the only universal truth that exists in this world – the energy of ardour and life.

The Never Unfriended Promise I promise I will never unfriend you. Not with the swipe of my finger, not with the roll of my eyes, not with a mean word said behind your back, or a circle too small to pull up one more chair. I choose to like you. I choose to choose you. To include you. To invite you. Even on the days we hit road bumps. I don’t want another friendship break up. I want a friendship that won’t give up. So, I give you my too-loud laughter and my awkward tears. I give you my sofa for the days you just can’t even. And the nights you need a safe place to feel heard without saying a word. Let there be coffee and long conversations. Let there be messy, ordinary Tuesdays where neither of us is embarrassed by our dust bunnies. I won't try to force our friendship into jeans that won't fit. I won't treat you like a quick fix. I will like you just the way you are. Because I believe in guilt-free friendship. And on the days we’re tangled up in our own insecurities let’s agree to give each other the gift of the benefit of the doubt. Wrapped up with the giant bow of believing the best about each other, even when we don’t feel like it. I'm sure I won't always get it right. But I'll keep showing up. With encouragement instead of competition. With Kleenex, big news or sad news on the bad hair days and the Mondays and all the in between days with their ordinary news too. Friendship on purpose. Here's to me and you.

A careful reading of Scripture reveals that this is God's preferred way to make his presence known on earth - not chiefly through movers, shakers, and A-listers, but rather through out-casts, losers, those of ill repute, and those who were held in low esteem. If we examine Jesus' friendships, for example, we will notice a disproportionately low number of celebrities, powerful politicians, affluent business people, high-society people, prominent leaders, and the like. But if you were a known prostitute or a tax collector, an addict or an alcoholic, a no-name, a leper or a paralytic, or a despised and rejected sinner, your chance of being invited into Jesus' inner circle of friends would increase. So scandalous and unexpected were Jesus' associations that he was accused of being a glutton, a drunk, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Luke 7:34). The scribes and Pharisees shamed, scolded, and excluded such sinners for their failure to measure up. Yet these strugglers experienced Jesus as humble, gentle, and kind - attributes the scribes and Pharisees knew little to nothing about, because they were too busy separating the world between the good people and the bad people, the saints and the sinners, the virtuous and the scumbags, the insiders and the outsiders, the worthy and the unworthy. Meanwhile, Jesus was hanging out with, befriending, and welcoming religious society's choice rejects, thereby separating the world between the proud and the humble.

Clearly historical events have varying degrees of intensity. Some may almost fail to impinge on true reality, that is, on the central, most personal part of a person's life. Others can wreak such havoc there that nothing is left standing. The usual way in which history is written fails to reveal this. '1890: Wilhelm II dismisses Bismark.' Certainly a key event in German history, but scarcely an event at all in the biography of any German outside its small circle of protagonists. Life went on as before. No family was torn apart, no friendship broke up, no one fled their country. Not even a rendezvous was missed or an opera performance cancelled. Those in love, whether happily or not, remained so; the poor remained poor and the rich rich. Now compare that with '1933: Hindenburg sends for Hitler.' An earthquake shatters sixty - six million lives. Official academic history has nothing to tell us about the differences in intensity of historical occurrences. To learn about that, you must read biographies, not those of statesmen but the all too rare ones of unknown individuals. There you will see that one historical event passes over the private (real) lives of people like a cloud over a lake. Nothing stirs, there is only a fleeting shadow. Another event whips up the lake as if in a thunderstorm. For a while it is scarcely recognisable. A third may, perhaps, drain the lake completely. I believe history is misunderstood if this aspect is forgotton (and it is usually forgotton).

JAPANESE PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR are often explained in terms of tatemae and honne. Tatemae, meaning “front” or “facade,” refers to the face one shows the world, the opinions one expresses in public, or the role one is obligated to play based on one’s rank or position. Honne describes “the truth” or “honest feelings,” shared only within a trusted circle of family and friends. To let slip the mask, revealing honne to another, is a signal of intimacy or trust; it is tantamount to an offer of friendship. These ideas are hardly unique to Japan, and versions of tatemae and honne are alive and well in the West. But in the Japanese way of thinking, it is perfectly natural that tatemae and honne should be at odds, and no one need agonize over the discrepancy, or go out of his way to put them to rights.

The number of her acquaintances multiplied over the years as the number of her true friendships diminished. The Grant Longitudinal Study found that people who were neglected in childhood are much more likely to be friendless in old age... Erica was not solitary. But sometimes she felt she lived in crowded solitude. She was around a shifting mass of semi-friends, but was without a small circle of intimates. Over the years, in other words, she had become more superficial. She had been publicly active but privately neglectful. She had, over the course of her career, reorganized her own brain in ways that were perhaps necessary to professional achievement, but which were not satisfying now that her drive for worldly achievement had been fulfilled. She entered retirement beset by a feeling of general numbness. p341-2

Whatever may be said of the possibility of love at first sight, in which theory George was now a confirmed believer, there can be no doubt that an exactly opposite phenomenon is of frequent occurrence. After one look at some people even friendship is impossible. Such a one, in George's opinion, was this gurgling excrescence underneath the silk hat. He comprised in his single person practically all the qualities which George disliked most. He was, for a young man, extraordinarily obese. Already a second edition of his chin had been published, and the perfectly-cut morning coat which encased his upper section bulged out in an opulent semi-circle. He wore a little moustache, which to George's prejudiced eye seemed more a complaint than a moustache. His face was red, his manner dictatorial, and he was touched in the wind. Take him for all in all he looked like a bit of bad news.

we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves—such a friend ought to be—do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I—I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew." ... Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery and be overwhelmed by disappointments, yet when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.

There are a few consolations. First and foremost, a ravaged incensed defiance, a fuck you to the universe and all those who peddle sentimental nonsense that doesn’t fit our reality. A certain kind of art works too, the sort created by unflinching genius realists who went through as much loneliness as we have, who understood our sadness ahead of time, grief-stricken masters like Baudelaire and Leopardi, Pessoa and Pascal, who can express our petty domestic sorrow in mighty transcendental terms and induct us to the most dignified kind of regret. They were there too and, in the most abstract accomplished ways, tell us ‘I know’. And we have friendship, not the kind that obliterates the loneliness, but that allows us to commune around it. We can’t help each other directly, we’re more like a group of the dying in a hospice talking circle who won’t be able to eradicate the end but know they are at least not alone with it. We get better too at understanding statistics: that this is normal for a benighted group of us. We belong to an important minority party in the parliament of human suffering.

I joined a bunch of Bible studies when I started following Jesus. Everyone around me was in at least one, so I thought there must be some rule or eleventh commandment and I had just missed it. We sat in circles, and I assumed we'd either start making friendship bracelets or start talking about Jesus. We ate chips and cookies, and I heard lots of opinions about every social topic, about whether it's okay to watch rated R movies, and about what words meant in Greek and Hebrew. It wasn't long before I started to feel bored with the whole thing. That's when some friends and I started a 'Bible Doing' group. We read what Jesus said and then schemed ways to actually go and do those things. It might sound strange, but think about it: Jesus never said, 'Study Me.' He said, 'Follow Me.' Jesus invited us to find people who don't have food and to get them something to eat. He said to hang out with people in prison. He said if you know someone who doesn’t have a place to stay, help them find one. He was all about doing things for widows and orphans, not becoming informed about them. Following Jesus is way more exciting than studying Him. Do we need to know the Scriptures? You bet. But don't stop there. Our faith can start to get confusing and boring when we exercise it by debating about it.

Dear Circle of Life, The impression of you is so unique in the most exquisite ways. With you, there is a beginning and an end. You are the representation of birth and life. The in-between is survival, and the ending is death. The idea of life is just what it is when we arrive on the earth—our life is a circle, if you will, a 360. Once our wheels stop spinning, it rolls slowly until it completely stops. I believe there is a limitation to the circle of life—if there wasn’t, life would continue without end. Things are never certain, for there are always uncertain changes in the circle of life. In this universal symbol, there is repurpose in another life. You are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. How can that be? I guess because you are energetic. We are wholeness in another world, but here on earth, we are here to play the game from the cards that we are dealt until our time runs out. A world without end—that is interesting. I guess it is true because when we go to a new dimension, there is no such thing as an ending. Once we pass over, we originate into our infinite perfection. The self sees and feels no more back- biting, hurt, pain, depression, despair, and all the bullshit that follows. The circle of life has no blame, solitude, or default. Everything is what it is ... because it is perfect! I am aligned with the frequency and vibration of the moon and the stars.

1. Connect with Your Why Start by identifying your key motivations. Why do you want to reach your goal in the first place? Why is it important personally? Get a notebook or pad of paper and list all the key motivations. But don’t just list them, prioritize them. You want the best reasons at the top of your list. Finally, connect with these motivations both intellectually and emotionally. 2. Master Your Motivation There are four key ways to stay motivated as you reach for your goals: Identify your reward and begin to anticipate it. Eventually, the task itself can become its own reward this way. Recognize that installing a new habit will probably take longer than a few weeks. It might even take five or six months. Set your expectations accordingly. Gamify the process with a habit app or calendar chain. As Dan Sullivan taught me, measure the gains, not the gap. Recognize the value of incremental wins. 3. Build Your Team It’s almost always easier to reach a goal if you have friends on the journey. Intentional relationships provide four ingredients essential for success: learning, encouragement, accountability, and competition. There are at least seven kinds of intentional relationships that can help you grow and reach your goals: ​‣ ​Online communities ​‣ ​Running and exercise groups ​‣ ​Masterminds ​‣ ​Coaching and mentoring circles ​‣ ​Reading and study groups ​‣ ​Accountability groups ​‣ ​Close friendships If you can’t find a group you need, don’t wait. Start your own.

The belief in oneself, pride in oneself, a fundamental hostility and irony against “selflessness” belong to noble morality, just as much as an easy contempt and caution before feelings of pity and the “warm heart.” Powerful men are the ones who understand how to honour; that is their art, their realm of invention. The profound reverence for age and for ancestral tradition — all justice stands on this double reverence — the belief and the prejudice favouring forefathers and working against newcomers are typical in the morality of the powerful, and when, by contrast, the men of “modern ideas” believe almost instinctively in “progress” and the “future” and increasingly lack any respect for age, then in that attitude the ignoble origin of these “ideas” already reveals itself well enough. However, a morality of the rulers is most alien and embarrassing to present taste because of the severity of its basic principle that man has duties only with respect to those like him, that man should act towards those beings of lower rank, towards everything foreign, at his own discretion, or “as his heart dictates,” and, in any case, “beyond good and evil.” Here pity and things like that may belong. The capacity for and obligation to a long gratitude and a long revenge — both only within the circle of one’s peers — the sophistication in paying back again, the refined idea in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies (as, so to speak, drainage ditches for the feelings of envy, quarrelsomeness, and high spirits — basically in order to be capable of being a good friend): all those are typical characteristics of a noble morality, which, as indicated, is not the morality of “modern ideas” and which is thus nowadays difficult to sympathize with, as well as difficult to dig up and expose.

When Diana returned to work on Monday, September 16, she came directly to my bedroom and announced, “Mrs. Robertson, I have something important to tell you.” I could see out of the corner of my eye that she had a slight, mischievous grin on her face. “Go right ahead,” I said as I continued to blow-dry my hair in front of the mirror above the dresser. “No, Mrs. Robertson, I’d like your full attention.” I switched off my hair dryer and faced her as she stood in the doorway. “When you leave for work this morning, you’ll notice a lot of reporters and photographers at the entrance to the mews.” I wondered aloud if the press were following either Lord Vestey, a notorious international financier, or John Browne, a bright young M.P. known as one of “Maggie’s boys,” both of whom lived on our small street. “No, actually, Mrs. Robertson, they’re waiting for me,” Diana said with a great deal of blushing, staring at the floor, and throat clearing. “Good heavens, Diana, why?” “Well . . . I spent last weekend at Balmoral.” “With Prince Andrew?” I asked, remembering my friend Lee’s comment on the way to Glyndebourne. “No, actually, I was there to see Prince Charles.” More blushes and throat clearing, quickly followed by her disclaimer, “But he didn’t invite me. His mother did.” Hearing Diana speak of Her Majesty the Queen as “his mother” certainly gave me a clear picture of the circles in which Diana moved. I gasped and asked, probably rather tactlessly, “Gosh, do you think there’s any chance of a romance developing?” “Not really,” she said with noticeable regret. “After all, he’s thirty-one and I’m only nineteen. He’d never look seriously at me.” So modest, so appealing. I couldn’t imagine him not learning to love her. We certainly had. “Well, Diana, I wouldn’t be so sure,” I replied, thinking of my prediction from July.