Quotes from Aelred of Rievaulx

No medicine is more valuable, none more efficacious, none better suited to the cure of all our temporal ills than a friend to whom we may turn for consolation in time of trouble, and with whom we may share our happiness in time of joy.

Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ makes a third with us. No one can interrupt us now... So come now, dearest friend, reveal your heart and speak your mind." (p. 29)

Moreover, one should so respect a friend's presence that he dare not perform anything shameful or speak any unbecoming word, since any fault so reflects on a friend that the friend not only blushes and grieves inwardly but also reproaches himself with what he sees or hears, as if he had committed the sin himself.

Charity may be a very short word, but with its tremendous meaning of pure love, it sums up man's entire relation to God and to his neighbor.

Friendship is that virtue by which spirits are bound by ties of love and sweetness and out of many are made one.

As a result of a kiss, there arises in the mind a wonderful feeling of delight that awakens and binds together the love of them that kiss.