Paulo Coelho

Rosa de los Vientos and I (photo by Priya Sher)

The compass rose is an element of a map used to show direction,showing cardinal directions and frequently intermediate direction.

The “rose” term arises from the fairly ornate figures used with early compasses. A fleur-de-lis figure, evolved from the initial T in the north wind’s name Tramontane, is sometimes used to indicate the north direction. Similarly, on old maps the east was marked with an L for Levante, or with a Christian cross indicating the direction of Jerusalem from the point of view of western Europe’s countries.
A Rose of the Winds is an ancient version of a compass rose which personified compass directions as winds with individual names, such as the west wind Zephyrus and the east wind Eurus. A fountain in Taranto, Italy was inspired by and named after the Rose of the Winds.

Rose of the Winds also inspired several quotes about friendship

Aristotle: What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

Ben Jonson: True friendship consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and value.

Cicero: It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity.

Ecclesiasticus: A faithful friend is a strong defense: and he that hath found such an one hath found a treasure

Elie Wiesel: Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing

George Washington: Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation

Marcel Proust: Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Samuel Coleridge:Friendship is a sheltering tree.

Samuel Johnson: There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

Aristotle: Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

Czech Proverb: Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.

Saint Jerome: The friendship that can cease has never been real.

Madame de Tencin: Never refuse any advance of friendship, for if nine out of ten bring you nothing, one alone may repay you.

Publilius Siyrus Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.

And finally, Khalil Gibran on Friendship:

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.