Friends: Songs, Quotes, Poems, Stories

These are several of my dear friends
from home school co-op.

Hello friends!

In honor of Valentine's Week, I thought you might like to see a compilation of songs, quotes, poems, and stories about friendship.  I shared some of these with my English students in our home school co-op yesterday.

I also have a Valentine's Unit Study that you might enjoy.



I'm in a musical mood, so let's start there! 

Songs:

One from my childhood....



And from my children's childhoods (and my second childhood)...



"What a Friend We Have in Jesus" 
by Joseph Scriven

What a friend we have in Jesus

All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer.

O what peace we often forfeit

O what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations?

Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged.

Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Can we find a friend so faithful

Who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus knows our every weakness.

"Jesus What a Friend for Sinners"
by John Wilbur Chapman

Jesus! what a Friend for sinners!
Jesus! Lover of my soul;
Friends may fail me, foes assail me,
He, my Savior, makes me whole.

Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.

Quotes.... 

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~~ George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one." ~~ C.S. Lewis

Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.  ~~ Joseph Addison

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.  ~~ Arnold H. Glasow 


In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.  It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.  We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.  ~~ Albert Schweitzer

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.  ~~ Marcel Proust

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.  ~~ Henri Nouwen 

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?  ~~ Abraham Lincoln 

I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world. ~~ Thomas A. Edison 

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good. ~~ Helen Keller 

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.
Saint Basil 


Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books - especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day.  ~~ John Wooden 


Encourage one another and build each other up.  1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NIV84)

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.  ~~ Alfred Tennyson

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm.  Proverbs 13:20 (NIV84)

Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one that this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  ~~ Jesus in John 15

The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried.  ~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Southern Mail, 1929, translated from French by Curtis Cate

Yes'm, old friends is always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of.  ~~ Sarah Orne Jewett

A friend loves at all times.  Proverbs 17:17 (NIV84)

The quotes came mostly from these sources: 

• All Great Quotes
• Brainy Quote
• Psychology Today
• Quote Garden
• Bible Gateway

(Which one is your favorite?  Or do you have another one to share?  Leave a comment!)

Poems:

These are found in The Book of Virtues, but you can also Google to find some of them on-line.

• "If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking" by Emily Dickinson
• "A Time to Talk" by Robert Frost (quoted in my post Cloud Conversation)
• “New Friends and Old Friends” by Joseph Parry
• “The Arrow and the Song” poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Stories:

These are found in The Book of Virtues, but you can also Google to find some of them on-line.

• "The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde
• "Damon and Pythias"
• “Jonathan and David” by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
• "Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan"
• "The Lion and the Mouse" by Aesop
• "Where Love Is, God Is" by Leo Tolstoy
• "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams

I'd love to read your comments, so leave one below!

Virginia Knowles

www.VirginiaKnowles.blogspot.com

This blog post is linked at:

• Mom's the Word - Making Your Home Sing Monday
• Raising Homemakers on Wednesday
• Wise Woman Link Up on Wednesday
• Whole-Hearted Home on Wednesday