One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

More from Henry Brooks Adams

• Friends are born, not made.
• Morality is a private and costly luxury.
• The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong.
• We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and, when got, the repose is insupportable.
• I think we have the kind of friendship were if I were the devil, you’d be the only one I would tell.
• Accept loss forever