„I and me are always too deeply in conversation: how could I endure it,if there were not a friend?The friend of the hermit is always the third one: the third one is the float which prevents the conversation of the two from sinking into the depth.“

— Friedrich Nietzsche
„If two lives join, there is oft a scar.They are one and one, with a shadowy third;One near one is too far.“
— Robert Browning
„We were at the age when a friend's conversation seems like oneself talking, when one shares a life in common the way I still think, bachelor though I am, some married couples are able to live.“
— Cesare Pavese
„Save one-third, live on one-third, and give away one-third“
— Angelina Jolie
„Who is the third who walks always beside youWhen I count, there are only you and I togetherBut when I look ahead up the white roadThere is always another one walking beside you“
— T.S. Eliot