Quote#Friendship
The man that hails you Tom or Jack
Quote byWilliam Cowper · 1731–1800
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "On Friendship", l. 169 (1782).
English (original)
The man that hails you Tom or Jack, And proves, by thumping on your back, His sense of your great merit, Is such a friend that one had need Be very much his friend indeed To pardon or to bear it.
— William Cowper
More from William Cowper
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Man disobeys, and deity disowns me.
Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was.
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, And frustrate hope severer than despair.
Beware of desp'rate steps! The darkest day (Live till tomorrow) will have passed away.
Oh! I could thresh his old jacket till I made his pension jingle in his pockets.