Friendship is the wine of life.

There is nothing so fine as a new friend, for in time they become the most precious of all the Comforter's gifts — old friends!

Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work but the solidest things we know.

Friendship is one of the sweetest joys of life. Many might have failed beneath the bitterness of their trial had they not found a friend.

"Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one."
... It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision - it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude."

Unreal friendship may turn to real
But real friendship, once ended, cannot be mended

Make friendship a fine art.

The friendship of wise men
Is tasteless as water.
The friendship of fools
Is sweet as wine.
But the tastelessness of the wise
Brings true affection
And the savor of fools' company
Ends in hatred.

When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.

.. and these days I've come to prefer the more steady Bordeaux. I am no longer up to champagne from Ay: it's like a mistress: sparkling, flighty, vivacious, wayward - and not to be trusted. But Bordeaux is like a friend who in time of trouble and misfortune stands by us always, anywhere, ready to give us help, or just to share our quiet leisure. So raise your glasses - to our friend Bordeaux!

Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine — A sad, sour, sober beverage — by time
Is sharpen’d from its high celestial flavour
Down to a very homely household savour.

A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

Friendship, a dear balm...
A smile among dark frowns: a beloved light: A solitude, a refuge, a delight.

I rejoiced in the Burgundy. It seemed a reminder that the world was an older and better place than Rex knew, that mankind in its long passion had learned another wisdom than his. By chance I met this same wine again, lunching with my wine merchant in St James’s Street in the first Autumn of the war; it had softened and faded in the intervening years, but it still spoke in the pure, authentic accent of its prime, the same words of hope.