On the approach of spring I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794): Memoirs. Vol. i. p. 116.

  Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.

Izaak Walton (1593-1683): The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. ii.

  They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived company, with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Hermit. Chap. ix.

  As the Italians say, Good company in a journey makes the way to seem the shorter.

Izaak Walton (1593-1683): The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 1.

  Every man is like the company he is wont to keep.

Euripides (484-406 b c): Phoenix. Frag. 809.

  A fellow that makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar-cruet.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Tour to the Hebrides. Sept. 30, 1773.

  I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Rasselas. Chap. xvi.

  I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Johnsoniana. Seward. 617.

  The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.

Euripides (484-406 b c): Aegeus. Frag. 7.

  Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on,—how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour; what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'T is insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I 'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 1.

  Tell me thy company, and I will tell thee what thou art.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxiii.

  Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 3.