The only way to have a friend is to be…

The line comes from “Friendship”, one of the Essays that Emerson published in 1841. In this passage he warns against forcing a friendship: we must not spoil “its perfect flower” by impatience for its opening, and “We must be our own before we can be another’s.” Rather than calculating what to say to the people we admire, he advises silence: “Wait, and thy heart shall speak.”

The line completes a pair of maxims, just after “The only reward of virtue is virtue”. Emerson continues: “You shall not come nearer a man by getting into his house.” Introductions and social habits are of no use; only when we rise to the level of the person we admire shall we “meet as water with water”. A friendship cannot be arranged or won; it is earned by becoming worthy of it.

Emerson, a former minister living in Concord, built his essays from thoughts first noted in his journals. Out of context, the line has become a simple rule: to find a friend, begin by being one.

Essays: First Series, “Friendship”, 1841

Checked word for word in the work itself.

Read the passage in the work