165 True Best Friends Quotes to Celebrate Real Friendship
Good friends make life better, and we have put together a list of the best friends quotes to help you show how much they mean to you.
And if you’re looking for short friendship sayings for Instagram, we also have you covered.
Now go ahead and browse through to find your favorite.
Short Best Friends Quotes for Instagram
“Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family.” – Mario Puzo
“Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” – Maya Angelou
“How about ‘diamonds are a girl’s best friends?’ Nope. It should be switched around and pointed out, instead, that your best friends are diamonds.” – Gina Barreca
“If we treated ourselves as well as we treated our best friend, can you imagine?” – Meghan Markle
“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” – Muhammad Ali
“Women’s friendships are like a renewable source of power.” – Jane Fonda
“The truth is, no matter how lonely you might feel, you’re never going through anything alone….you can choose your family.” – Jennifer Lopez
“The best gift anyone can give, I believe, is the gift of sharing themselves.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses… swapped back and forth and over again.” – Michelle Obama
“A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside.” – A.A. Milne
“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” – Jane Austen
“One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about.” – Mindy Kaling
“Friendship is born at the moment when one man says to another, ‘What! You too?'” – C.S. Lewis
“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.” – J.K. Rowling
“Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies.” – Richelle Mead
“Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.” – William Shakespeare
“A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.” – Maya Angelou
“Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard.” – Walter Dean Myers
“Anybody can look at you. It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.” – John Green
“The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship.” – Joseph Addison
“A best friend is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.” – Irish Proverb
“A friend is a gift you give yourself.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“The best mirror is an old friend.” – George Herbert
“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A true friend is the greatest of all blessings.” – François de La Rochefoucauld
“Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.” – Edna Buchanan
“Friends are the siblings God never gave us.” – Mencius
“Friendship is a sheltering tree.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.” – Woodrow Wilson
“You’ve got a friend in me.” – Toy Story
“I’m only me when I’m with you.” – Taylor Swift
“Life is an adventure best shared with a best friend.” – Unknown
“No road is long with good company.” – Turkish Proverb
“A friend to all is a friend to none.” – Aristotle
“Remember that life’s most valuable antiques are dear old friends.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“The best friend is the one who brings out the best in you.” – Henry Ford
“Friendship is love without wings.” – Lord Byron
“A best friend is a treasure chest of memories and laughter.” – Unknown
“Of all possessions, a friend is the most precious.” – Herodotus
“Friendship is the sweetest influence.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The best time to make friends is before you need them.” – Ethel Barrymore
“The language of friendship is not words but meanings.” – Henry David Thoreau
“The only way to have a friend is to be one.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“True friendship is a plant of slow growth.” – George Washington
“Best friend isn’t a person; it’s a tier.” – Mindy Kaling
“Friendship isn’t a big thing, it’s a million little things.” – Becca Anderson
“A true friend is one soul in two bodies.” – Aristotle
“A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.” – Donna Roberts
“Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.” – Virginia Woolf
“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” – Walter Winchell
“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.” – P.G. Wodehouse
“’Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.” – Charles Lamb
“If you have two friends in your lifetime, you’re lucky. If you have one good friend, you’re more than lucky.” – S.E. Hinton
“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” – Elie Wiesel
“Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.” – Oscar Wilde
“Wherever we are, it is our friends that make our world.” – Henry Drummond
“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.” – Kahlil Gibran
“My friends are my estate.” – Emily Dickinson
“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” – Thomas Aquinas
“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“True friends are always together in spirit.” – L.M. Montgomery
“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” – Alice Walker
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – Anaïs Nin
“In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.” – John Churton Collins
“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” – Albert Camus
“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.” – Helen Keller
“I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
“Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.'” – E.B. White
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” – Stephen King
“Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.” – Sarah Dessen
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away.” – Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
“There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.” – Jim Henson
“Of all the things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.” – Epicurus
“The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.” – Mark Twain
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” – Elbert Hubbard
“We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome… One of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say — and to feel — ‘Yes, that’s the way it is… You’re not as alone as you thought.'” – John Steinbeck
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” – C.S. Lewis
“There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.” – Charlotte Brontë
“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Misfortune tests the sincerity of friends.” – Aesop
“Little friends may prove great friends.” – Aesop
“Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives and remembering what one receives.” – Alexander Dumas
“Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.” – Ally Condie
“Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” – Amy Poehler
“Thank you for being a friend / Traveled down a road and back again / Your heart is true, you’re a pal and a confidant.” – Andrew Gold
“To have a few amazing friends on this side of eternity, this sometimes grotesque amusement park, is the greatest joy.” – Ann Lamott
“Some people arrive and make such a beautiful impact on your life, you can barely remember what life was like without them.” – Anna Taylor
“A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in the garden.” – Anonymous / Proverbs
“A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.” – Arnold Glasgow
“A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” – Arnold H. Glasgow
“Friends are God’s way of taking care of us.” – Anonymous
“Good friends help you find important things when you have lost them. Your smile, you hope, and your courage.” – Unknown Author
“Hold a true friend with both your hands.” – Nigerian Proverb
“Keep your friends close, your enemies even closer.” – Sun Tzu
“Make a friend when you don’t need one.” – Jamaican Proverb
“One enemy is too many and a hundred friends too few.” – Anonymous
“Strangers are just friends waiting to happen.” – Rod McKuen
“The road to a friend’s house is never long.” – Danish Proverb
“There are some people in life that make you laugh a little louder, smile a little bigger, and live just a little bit better.” – Unknown Author
“When I eat your bread, I sing your song.” – German Proverb
“Who is mighty? He who makes an enemy into a friend.” – Hebrew Proverb
“You never really know your friends from your enemies until the ice breaks.” – Eskimo Proverb
“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.” – Aristotle
“A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling.” – Arthur Brisbane
“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” – Audrey Hepburn
“The wise man learns more from his enemies than the fool does from his friends.” – Baltasar Gracián
“A true friend is the best Possession.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Friendship increases by visiting friends but visiting seldom.” – Benjamin Franklin
“No better relation than a prudent and faithful friend.” – Benjamin Franklin
“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” – Bernard Meltzer
“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” – Bob Marley
“An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.” – Buddha
“For good times and bad times / I’ll be on your side forever more / That’s what friends are for.” – Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager
“Friends should be like books, few, but hand-selected.” – C.J. Langenhoven
“Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.” – Charles Kingsley
“One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.” – Clifton Fadiman
“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” – Confucius
“True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.” – David Tyson Gentry
“There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul.” – Edith Wharton
“Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.” – Ed Cunningham
“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” – Elisabeth Foley
“True friends don’t judge each other, they judge other people together.” – Emilie Saint-Genis
“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway
“The real test of friendship is can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?” – Eugene Kennedy
“Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness.” – Euripides
“A friend can tell you things you don’t want to tell yourself.” – Frances Ward Weller
“Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” – Henry David Thoreau
“True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side, / Withstand the winter’s storm, / And spite of wind and tide, / Grow up the meadow’s pride, / For both are strong / Above they barely touch, but undermined / Down to their deepest source, / Admiring you shall find / Their roots are intertwined / Insep’rably.” – Henry David Thoreau
“[Friends are] God’s apology for relations.” – Hugh Kingsmill
“It may be more difficult to make new friends as you get older but it is some consolation to know how easy it is to lose them when you are young.” – Jeffrey Bernard
“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” – Jim Morrison
“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.” – Khalil Gibran
“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasure. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.” – Khalil Gibran
“A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.” – Leo Buscaglia
“A good friend is a connection to life a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.” – Lois Wyse
“One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust
“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
“It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” – Marlene Dietrich
“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Friendship is one mind in two bodies.” – Mencius
“Never forget that a true friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.” – Noel Jones
“To find a friend one must close one eye. To keep him—close two.” – Norman Douglas
“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.” – Octavia Butler
“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” – Orson Welles
“Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.” – Oscar Wilde
“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.” – Paramahansa Yogananda
“What would you think if I sang out of tune? / Would you stand up and walk out on me? / Lend me my ears and I’ll sing you a song / And I’ll try not to sing out of key / Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.” – Paul McCartney and John Lennon
“I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.” – Plutarch
“A friendship that can end never really began.” – Publilius Syrus
“Most of us don’t need a psychiatric therapist as much as a friend to be silly with.” – Robert Brault
“I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.” – Robert Brault
“Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.” – Samuel Butler
“Keep your friendships in repair.” – Samuel Butler
“The great thing about new friends is that they bring new energy to your soul.” – Shanna Rodriguez
“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.” – Tennessee Williams
“Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.” – Thomas J. Watson
“Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.” – Washington Irving
“I was angry with my friend: / I told my wrath, my wrath did end. / I was angry with my foe: / I told it not, my wrath did grow.” – William Blake
“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.” – William Shakespeare
“If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.” – Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne)
Funny Best Friends Quotes
“A good friend will always stab you in the front.” – Oscar Wilde
“I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell—you see, I have friends in both places.” – Mark Twain
“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re OK, then it’s you.” – Rita Mae Brown
“Most of us don’t need a psychiatric therapist as much as a friend to be silly with.” – Robert Brault
“One sure way to lose another woman’s friendship is to try to improve her flower arrangements.” – Marcelene Cox
“‘Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.” – Charles Lamb
“A good friend will help you move. But a best friend will help you move a dead body.” – Jim Hayes
“A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.” – Arnold H. Glasgow
“You’re mad. Bonkers. Off your head. But I’ll tell you a secret: Some of the best people are.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
“Friends make you smile—best friends make you giggle ’til you pee your pants.” – Terri Guillemets
“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” – Jane Austen
“You find out who your real friends are when you’re involved in a scandal.” – Elizabeth Taylor
“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” – Bernard Meltzer
“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You can always tell a real friend: When you’ve made a fool of yourself, he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job.” – Laurence J. Peter
“There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.” – Sylvia Plath
“Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.” – Samuel Butler
“‘Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Creeping Man
“A messy house is a must—it separates your true friends from other friends. Real friends are there to visit you, not your house!” – Jennifer Wilson
