Spiritual Friendship Quotes

“No medicine is more valuable, none more efficacious, none better suited to the cure of all our temporal ills than a friend to whom we may turn for consolation in time of trouble, and with whom we may share our happiness in time of joy.”
― Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship

“Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ makes a third with us. No one can interrupt us now... So come now, dearest friend, reveal your heart and speak your mind." (p. 29)”
― Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship

“Moreover, one should so respect a friend's presence that he dare not perform anything shameful or speak any unbecoming word, since any fault so reflects on a friend that the friend not only blushes and grieves inwardly but also reproaches himself with what he sees or hears, as if he had committed the sin himself.”
― Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship

“With Ambrose’s help, Aelred adjusts the Ciceronian model to portray friends’ sharing with one another not only their questions but also their fears and hopes. All three of the young monks being instructed thus demonstrate the ease with which friends interact as they talk candidly with one another and with their abbot and teacher.”
― Marsha Dutton, Spiritual Friendship

“For he that loves iniquity” does not love, but “hates his own soul.” 30 Truly, he who does not love his own soul will not be able to love the soul of another. 31”
― Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary by Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R.

“How beautiful it is that the second human being was taken from the side of the first, so that nature might teach that human beings are equal and, as it were, collateral, and that there is in human affairs neither a superior nor an inferior, a characteristic of true friendship.”
― Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary by Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R.

“It was from no similar, nor even from the same, material that divine Might formed this help mate, but as a clearer inspiration to charity and friendship he produced the woman from the very substance of the man.51 How beautiful it is that the second human being was taken from the side of the first, so that nature might teach that human beings are equal and, as it were, collateral, and that there is in human affairs neither a superior nor an inferior, a characteristic of true friendship.”
― Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary by Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R.

“However, I confess that I am convinced that true friendship cannot exist among those who live without Christ.”
― Dennis Billy, Spiritual Friendship: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary by Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R.

“Friendship is mutual harmony in affairs human and divine coupled with benevolence and charity.”
― Dennis Billy, Spiritual Friendship: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary by Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R.

“At its best, dialogue invites the reader to become more than an isolated thinker—he or she becomes an active participant in a group discovery.4”
― Dennis Billy, Spiritual Friendship: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary by Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R.