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Who really said it

The only way to have a friend is to be one

Written by Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803–1882 · American essayist, poet & lecturer; written 1841
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From Emerson’s essay “Friendship” ↗ in Essays: First Series (1841), where the full sentence reads “The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.” This is one of the comparatively few famous Emerson lines that is correctly credited to him.

Last verified 7 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“The only way to have a friend is to be one” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Provenance

The source

Work
“Friendship”
Collection
Essays: First Series
Published
1841 (Boston: James Munroe & Co.)
Location
Near the essay’s close, paired with “The only reward of virtue is virtue”

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one. ↑ the popular version drops the first half of the sentence

Emerson sets the two clauses in parallel: friendship, like virtue, is not a prize you extract from others but something you become. Quoted alone, the second half loses that mirror.

Read “Friendship” in full at Emerson Central

How we verified this

Public domain

Written in 1841, the text is long in the public domain.

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Friendship Kindness

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

“Friendship” — full textemersoncentral.com

Complete essay text; the sentence appears near the close.
50 Quotations by Emersonwalden.org

Walden Woods Project list attributing the line to “Friendship.”
Emerson on Friendshipthemarginalian.org

Maria Popova’s reading of the essay’s argument about friendship and character.
Essays: First Seriesen.wikipedia.org

Background on the 1841 collection containing “Friendship.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Sourced Emerson quotations, with separate lists of the many misattributed ones.

The author

About Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803–1882 · American essayist, lecturer & poet

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was the central figure of American Transcendentalism, a Boston-born essayist and lecturer whose Essays: First Series (1841) — including “Self-Reliance,” “Friendship,” and “Compensation” — shaped American thought about individualism and the moral life. His aphoristic style made him endlessly quotable, which is also why so many un-Emersonian lines now travel under his name; this one, however, is authentically his.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” in Essays: First Series (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1841).

MLA (9th ed.)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Friendship.” Essays: First Series, James Munroe and Company, 1841.

APA (7th ed.)

Emerson, R. W. (1841). Essays: First series. James Munroe and Company.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The only way to have a friend is to be one’?” Last verified 7 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-only-way-to-have-a-friend-is-to-be-one

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