Henry David Thoreau Quotes

My advice is to stop trying to "network" in the traditional business sense, and instead just try to build up the number and depth of your friendships, where the friendship itself is its own reward. The more diverse your set of friendships are, the more likely you'll derive both personal and business benefits from your friendship later down the road. You won't know exactly what those benefits will be, but if your friendships are genuine, those benefits will magically appear 2-3 years later down the road.

There is nothing so delightful as the hearing, or the speaking of truth. For this reason, there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.

....for friendships that are acquired by a price and not by greatness and nobility of character are purchased but are not owned, and at the proper moment they cannot be spent.

I want friends, not admirers. People who respect me for my character and my deeds, not my flattering smile. The circle around me would be much smaller, but what does that matter, as long as they're sincere?

I work in the margins. The margins are where you'll find the nice people. You'll find real friends. You'll find honesty. You'll find integrity. You'll find relationships that will last you for a lifetime and will be there to support you in the bad times, which are the only relationships that matter anyway. Relationships that are all about power and money aren't worth having.

I make sure I always surround myself with good, down to earth, fun, real people, who always keep me grounded.

Be present. Be meditative. Form real friendships. Stay away from business networking events or friendships where there is always an underlying business angle.

In high school, I felt pressure to fit in with groups and with people who didn't actually want to be my friend. That's something I learned moving forward into adulthood: to keep the people around me people who love me for exactly who I am.

You have to be honest, even when you are upset with your child. Your intentions must be clear. You must never lie to your child.

I believe the best friendships are forged with those you can be yourself with.

The reality is, if you're friends with somebody you should be able to be honest with them, and that honesty should be the biggest magnet to truth.

I just simply believe in having purposeful relations, period. That's what its about at the end of the day. However, I do appreciate people that are individualistic, mainly because I'm an impressionable soul and my friends become my big sisters and brothers in a way.

In a social environment that is ever crowded and impersonal, it is becoming increasingly important to reconsider the value of close personal relationships before we are driven to ask the forlorn question, 'Whatever happened to love?'

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

When I have my interview with my God, our conversation will focus on the individuals whose self-esteem I was able to strengthen, whose faith I was able to reinforce, and whose discomfort I was able to assuage—a doer of good, regardless of what assignment I had. These are the metrics of that matter in measuring my life. This realization, which occurred nearly fifteen years ago, guided me every day to seek opportunities to help people in ways tailored to their individual circumstances. My happiness and my sense of worth has been immeasurably improved as a result.

I’ve been friends with all these people for so many years now…. I’m so lucky to have Jennifer [Lawrence] and Josh [Hutcherson] and Woody [Harrelson] and all these other great people. We’ve created really strong bonds. It’s like high school because we’ll mess around for half the day and then we’ll do a little bit of work. Everyone’s goofing around and trying to mess each other up.

Your friends will notice at once that glib vacuities fail to impress, and hate you, and tell lies about you. It's worth it.

I won't lie to you and make you believe what's evil, is making love, and making friends, and meeting God your own way... the RIGHT way.

One honest relationship can be more productive than fistfuls of business cards.

One genuine new relationship is worth a fistful of business cards.

I love a friendship that flatters itself in the sharpness and vigor of its communications.

I don't have the kinds of relationships that are built on any kind of false pretense, not to say that I haven't. I've had just as many as anybody else, but I haven't had them in a long time.

we shall know that we have begun to speak true by an increased hunger for true-speaking; we shall have the whole hunger only after we have given ourselves the first taste of it.

I'm always on the market for a new friend, period. As your success continues to grow, you start to see who your real friends are. But I'm always looking for wonderful people to have in my life that have no agenda and aren't fake friends.

I definitely have some colleagues that I respect, and we get together from time to time. But I actually have just like genuine friends.