Notes from On Friendship

I read this as an ebook, so the reference numbers for each quote are the numbered part from which they come.

Part 13

Let this, then, be laid down as the first law of friendship, that we should ask from friends, and do for friends, only what is good. But do not let us wait to be asked either: let there ever be an eager readiness, and an absence of hesitation.

Part 20

For there are people who make their friendship disagreeable by imagining themselves undervalued. This generally happens only to those who think that they deserve to be so; and they ought to be shewn by deeds as well as by words the groundlessness of their opinion.

Part 21

But most people not only recognize nothing as good in our life unless it is profitable, but look upon friends as so much stock, caring most for those by whom they hope to make most profit. Accordingly they never possess that most beautiful and most spontaneous friendship which must be sought solely for itself without any ulterior object.

Part 21

For man not only loves himself, but seeks another whose spirit he may so blend with his own as almost to make one being of two.

Part 23

So true it is that nature abhors isolation, and ever leans upon something as a stay and support; and this is found in the most pleasing form in our closest friend.

Part 24

Plain speaking is a cause of trouble, if the result of it is resentment, which is the poison of friendship; but compliance is really the cause of much more trouble, because by indulging his faults it lets a friend plunge headlong into ruin. But the man who is most to blame is he who resents plain speaking, and allows flattery to egg him on to his ruin.

Part 26

It is not then properly friendship at all when the one will not listen to the truth, and the other is prepared to lie.

Part 27

But in view of the instability and perishableness of mortal things, we should be continually on the lookout for some to love and by whom to be loved; for if we lose affection and kindliness from our life, we lose all that gives it charm.