Quote#Friendship
Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long Absence,…
Quote byAlexander Pope · 1688–1744
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter, written in collaboration with Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, to Jonathan Swift (14 December 1725).
English (original)
Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long Absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: Absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.
— Alexander Pope
More from Alexander Pope
A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.
'Tis fixed, the irrevocable doom of Jove; No force can bend me, no persuasion move.
Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.
Well, if our author in the wife offends He has a husband that will make amends; He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving, And sure such kind good creatures may be living.
They dream in Courtship, but in Wedlock wake.