Loyalty is an invaluable attribute that helps forge lasting friendships and loving relationships. After all, without a sense of trust, sharing our thoughts and feelings, successes and failures with loved ones becomes difficult. Knowing someone has your back and will stick by you, even in moments of weakness or hard times, is a liberating feeling. It’s the kind of support we get from a select few proven friends and devoted partners.
Although loyalty is important for deep human connection, it can also be exploited for more nefarious purposes. Blind allegiance to authoritative figures, outdated beliefs, or harmful relationships can be unhealthy or even dangerous. Trust shouldn’t be a gift freely given — it’s one that is earned. In honor of this noble virtue, these 13 quotes from writers, philosophers, Presidents, and more exemplify the immutable power of loyalty.
Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens.
Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.
If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.
A friend is someone who walks into a room when everyone else is walking out.
Loyal companions are an unequaled grace, stanching fear before it bleeds you numb, a reliable antidote for creeping despair.
We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.
Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable, than loyalty.
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down.
It is better to be faithful than famous.
Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.
Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.
Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
Featured Image Credit: Hulton Archive via Getty Images
Darren Orf
Darren lives in Portland, Oregon, has two cats, and writes about science, technology, nature, and history.
