A Gripping Adventure of One Person To Discover The Most Amazing Friendship Quotations

A few years ago, I used to be a history schoolteacher so I suppose myself to be an authority about the past. One thing I’ve always fancied researching is notable quotes on distinct topics. While there are intelligent individuals in the world today, the collective advice of the past provides awesome material for living a virtue filled and worthwhile existence.

I recently reconnected with a good buddy from school. We spent very nearly all our time together when we were children. We would play outside often from daybreak to night. We also participated in baseball and other sports together. I can’t tell a lie. We were really best friends. Nonetheless when high school ended we both moved in particular directions and lost contact.

Somehow we stopped talking and I didn’t see him in 10 entire years. I guess we became too busy with our careers and families. While we can blame extrinsic sources, the authentic problem rests with us. We merely didn’t give friendship the precedence it needed. So I figured I would locate friendship quotes throughout history to remind me why it’s imperative to make time for them.

The first place I looked for friend quotations was the ancient world. It appears the Greeks and the Romans valued friendships immensely. I found a several great quotations from Aristotle. My favorite piece of advice from Aristotle says: “the antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.” That impressed me because it demonstrates why friends are much more effectual than any 1 enemy.

I also like a quote by Cicero I discovered. He said “thus nature contains no love for solitude, and always leans, as it were, on some support; and the sweetest support is discovered through the most intimate friendship.” This quotation reminds all that while acquintances are great, best friends are even more extraordinary.

The transcendentalists of the 19th century in the United States of America wrote a lot on the theme of friendship. Ralph Waldo Emerson is a great resource of meaningful quotes for friends. Emerson said “A Friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.” This is likely my favorite Emerson quotation since it mentions how important finding good friendships can be. it is sad that most people today make friendships secondary to jobs, duties, and everything else.

I stated a while ago that we can benefit from the collective wisdom of the past. However, there are some awesome friend quotes from the modern time too. One of my favorite contemporary quotes comes from Oprah Winfrey who said of acquintances “lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

This is one of the most amazing modern friend quotes since it summarizes what separates real friends from casual friends. I personally want acquintances who remain with me at all times, not only every now and then.

I expect you fancied this thesis. I was able to connect with my good friend and I hope that you will dig up friendships with various individuals in your life also.

The author of this thesis truly understands friendship quotations and friends quotes. Check out his website for valuable information on many themes.

The Myth of Perfection: If You Want to Live, You Have to Grow: Podcast

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Love and Fear (podcast)

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Lust, Luv, Love (Podcast)

(Part 1) My Junior Prom and My First Time Shaving, Oh and I Got Dumped too…

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Oh my Junior Prom…  You know I have a lot of stories to tell, but this is probably one of my favorites…  It would have made a great episode of the Wonder Years.  When I think about it, I can almost hear Daniel Stern narrating the background.

I heard Paul turned into Marylin Manson… I loved that show…

 Back in High School, there was this new girl who had just moved into town- let’s call her Monica, of course, to protect the innocent.  OK she really isn’t that innocent… but I guess her identity should still be protected. 

She had moved in from another state in the south, and she was cute as a button… OK she was really good looking… cute just doesn’t suffice.  So I buddied up with her in Physics class, since she sat next to me, and I turned on the ol’ Wagner charm.  I was witty, funny, insightful… as much as a Jr. in High School could be and eventually I got her to go out on a date with me.  We went to see Billy Madison.  I still cringe when I see that movie, although it does open with a guy in a penguin suit, so instantly I forget my woes.

Eventually, I asked Monica to the prom.  3 months before the prom.  She said yes and I was sooooo happy.  I about shot out of the car like a rocket!  I bought her flowers and gifts and all sorts of stuff- I really really liked her a lot.  I think it embarrased her a little… or a lot. 

The night came for the prom, and with my youthful features I decided to shave for the first time- cutting a big gash in my faced with the razor, just below my right eye.  There was no reason to be shaving, let alone shaving under my eye, but I saw the flap of skin come down, and the blood began to flow.  It wouldn’t have been so bad had I not already been dressed in my tux (complete with tails by the way) (I had a cane too… I just needed a top hat and a monocle to make the look complete), and the limo had just pulled up.  Luckily I had plenty of bandaids and gauze on hand.

We got to my friend’s house, and he had a brilliant idea to help me with my bleeding problem- so he ran into his house, with a green bottle of rubbing alcohol, and told me to put some on the gauze and put it in the wound.

A cry went through the land. 

Birds flew out of trees, dogs, howled in the distance, and somewhere a monkey fell out of a tree.

By the way, not only does rubbing alcohol sting, it makes things bleed faster.  That is just an FYI.

Anyway, we picked Monica up at her house, and she came out looking like… well… I guess I should be nice.  She looked… is there a nice way to say this?  She looked like…  a “professional?”  You know what I mean?  I was embarrassed in front of my three other friends and their dates.

Then she got into the limo, and said, for all to hear- “by the way, my boyfriend told me that if you touch me, he is going to beat you up.”

“Huh,” I thought,” I thought I was your boyfriend.”  I guess I was mistaken.  That may have hurt a little.  She didn’t even think my shaving scar was cool.

I really had it for this girl- I got a tux with tails and a limo, and we went to the most expensive restaurant in town, called The Refectory.  We walked in, and sat down, and she ordered the most expensive thing on the menu.  Rabbit I believe.  Took a bite and finished eating.

“Huh,” thought I. I simply said, “if you aren’t going to eat it, then I will.”  Good think I like rabbit.  Tastes like chicken.  (By the way, why is rabbit so expensive?  It’s not like they have a problem making more.) (Rabbit is a renewable resource.)

Anyway, we went to the dance.  I did cut a rug, and even boogied a little.  Sometimes with Monica.  Sometimes without.  I dance like a brick with arms.  That is, I never move my feet, just my arms.  I do raise the roof sometimes, I have to admit.

This is how I roll too…

At the end of the night, we decided to go bowling- I had to hold her pager because there was no room in her “professional” dress to hold it, and for some strange reason, she got paged a half dozen times at 2 AM.  It was an emergency and she had to go.  I was ready for her to go anyway.

So I took her home  and she asked me if I was upset at her.  I said no.  I was just done.  Maybe a little hurt.  So I ended the evening back and my friend’s house, where I got to sit on the couch while the other guys hung out with their dates.  AWKWARD!

How I felt…

Um, so there is a point to this story, which I will tell tomorrow.  I think the story speaks for itself really… I just like telling it.  Stay tuned for part two tomorrow, which I will give the point.

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“You are off route.” (Accountability)

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The title of this particular post comes from the naggy voice of my GPS system. She says that to me a lot. There were many good traits that I received from my parents, who are both very smart and talented people. My mom always had a good sense of direction. So much so that my brother said you could blind fold her, drop her in the forest, and she would find her way back home and have dinner on the table before 5 o’clock. Dad on the other hand… did not have a good sense of direction. I remember once being lost with him on the road for a couple of hours. We were really lost. Guess which one I take after.

It is a good thing that we live in the modern age, or else I would still be driving around New Jersey right now. I have a terrible sense of direction. Cortez I am not… If you dropped me a in a forest, I would probably just sit down in the soft leaves and cry. I have done it before. In this time we have the great invention of the GPS- the Global positioning system.

It is a neat invention really- it simply detects the multiple GPS sattelites that are orbiting the earth, and somehow calculates your postion based on the signal strength of those sattelites relative to where you are standing on the globe. Then, you just punch in the address, and a little chime happens, letting you know the route has been created.

Even with a GPS though, I have managed to get lost… really lost.

I have a buddy… let’s call him Milo. Milo and I were searching for a good cup of coffee one night, so we decided to pull out his rusty, trusty, GPS, which had several entries for coffee shops in our area. Milo, by the way, has a bad sense of direction as well.

We selected one of the coffee shops on the list, something different from your typical Star Bucks, or Cup’O'Joe. We faithfully followed the GPS, turning here, turning there, and kept getting deeper and deeper into a neighborhood where finally the GPS dropped us off in front of a dimly lit house in a cal-du-sac in the middle of a very nice neighborhood. No signs. No aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Just darkness pierced every so often by the street lamps.

Milo and I looked at each other, understanding the the GPS had possibly lead us astray. We started laughing. I half considered just going up to the door of the house and asking them for a cup of coffee!

For the most part though, GPS systems are pretty reliable. Much like me, they may not give you the most direct route to get from point A to point B, but they usually get you there unscathed. Plus the nice thing is that the little voice comes over the GPS and gently (or in my GPS’s cas not so gently) and reminds us that we are off route. Then it is ever so kind as to show you how to get back on route.

It’s too bad that we don’t have built in GPS systems to let us know when we are off route. When it comes to me and my bad sense of direction I know I need something in the car to tell me where I am, and where I need to be.

All of us need that though. As I have mentioned in previous posts, it is impossible to see your own face without a mirror, so you need something outside of yourself to let you know how you really look.

We need to be accountable to someone sometime. That is hard to do because it requires a certain amount of humility- a certain amount of vulnerability to another person to not only let them know where you are, but also where you need to go to get back on route. Unlike my naggy GPS, which always sounds angry at me when I get off route, we all need an accountability partner of some kind who will gently nudge us back on course. Of course, there are guys like me who sometimes need to get hit with a 2 x 4 in order to get it. Those are the kind of people I need in my life.

Who makes a good accountability partner? Finding a mentor, a spiritual director, a good sponsor in a 12 step program, a brother or sister, a close friend or spouse, or heck, the whole community! (I think of those celebrities who go on public diets in order that the media actually becomes their accountability partner) I try and have a few accountability partners in my life- people I feel that I can trust and tell things to, who I know will not use it against me.

When we are growing up, our natural accountability partners should be our parents, and to a lesser extent our brothers and sisters. As those relationships change as we get older, we have to make a conscious effort to find those accountability partners wherever we can.

The flip side of this coin is that when you become someone other people become accountable to, it really becomes a mutual relationship- a good accountability relationship goes both ways and benefits both people involved- a good teacher has to make sure they know their stuff!  I know that people have trusted me in the past, and I ended up getting more out of the situation than they did in most cases!

Certainly no one is perfect, not even my GPS system which lead us astry the night we needed Java, but for the most part I trust that when I am off route, my GPS, and all the people who I have made myself accountable to in this life, will help me get back on.

Low Fuel Warning

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So I was chatting with a friend of mine today on the phone, and she mentioned that she ran out of gas on her way to work.

I am always stunned when people run out of gas frankly, since most cars are equipped with low fuel warning lights to indicate that, well, you are low on fuel.  That is what the light is for.

So I asked my friend, let’s call her, Wilma, “Wilma, how do you run out of gas since there is a low gas light in your car?”  I was both perplexed and fascinated.  And a little hungry.  That has nothing to do with this situation though.  I just thought you might like to know.

Wilma responded by saying that for some reason, the low gas light didn’t come on in her car at all, so it was something of a shock to her as well.  I imagine there was a feeling of dread as the car sputtered to a stop…

I know that in my driving career, I have let the gas light come on quite a few times.  When you are out and about and on the road, it is an inconvenience to stop and fill up the gas tank, even though you know you need it, or the price at this station is 3 cents lower than any other station you have seen.  I hate it when that little light comes on, because really, I have no choice.  Within a few miles Lucy (my car) and I will be stranded on the side of the road.  The little indicator light, when it is working, tells me that it is time to stop by and refuel.  Unfortunately for Wilma, that light failed her.  I did tell her how good of an analogy this was, and how I wasn’t going to give her any credit.  WIIIIIILLLMMMAAAA!  As Fred Flintsone would say.  Those Flintstone’s never ran out of gas, but I bet their feet hurt a lot.

It is too bad that we don’t come with “low fuel warning” lights.  Lord knows I could use one.  Back in the days before warning lights in cars, I bet it was much more common to have cars run out of gas.  That little light, and the fuel gauge altogether tell us that it is time to refuel, or risk getting stranded on the side of the road.

For those of us without built in fuel lights, it is hard for us to know when our spiritual, emotional, or even physical tank is getting near empty.  Certainly, like a fuel gauge in a car there are lots of indications that we are running on fumes, such as irritability, acting out with food or drugs or alcohol, insomnia, or even depressions.  Like a fuel gauge though, it is very possible to ignore the obvious signs, and tell ourselves that we have plenty of gas left in the tank, and that if we drive even faster, we will get more out of what we have left.

 

Probably when our personal tanks get empty, it becomes something of an inconvenience to stop and refuel, just because we feel like we need to get where we are going, and stopping for gas would just slow us down.

A stopped car never goes anywhere folks.  Never…

Out of Gas

What tends to happen to us, and what happened to me once in recent memory, is that we go and go and go, just like that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer and the car salesman wanted to see how far they could drive when the fuel light came on.  All of a sudden we will stop.  We will sputter, and we will be stranded on the side of the road, forced to call in help.  This leads us to embarrasement, sorrow, and sadness.  I imagine that even in a big city, getting stranded on the side of the road is one of the loneliest feelings that one can have, I imagine that the only thing worse is having your life get stranded on the side of the road as well.

 We need to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves in every way, and that in the midst of our business in life, we aren’t simply running on empty all the time.  When a car gets stranded on the side of the road, it affects the traffic around it.  Even if it is on the shoulder, the other cars will slow down, and look, forcing traffice itself to slow down.  We have to remember that to take care of our basic human needs helps others to get where they are going as well, and not to affects everyone else in a negative way.

So it should not be seen as an inconvenience to stop and refuel.  If it is important, we are going to do the things that we need to take care of ourselves and others- we will pray or meditate, we will stimulate ourselves intellectually, get enough sleep, eat right, exercise, take time for friends and family, and simply stop and let the engine cool down a little.  It doesn’t take much- a car can run for hundreds of miles on one tank of gas, and it only takes a few minutes to fill up.

How full is your tank?