Notes

Without friends no one would choose to live. When men are friends they have no need of justice. Birds of a feather flock together. Opposites attract. two of a trade never agree. Do men love, then, the good, or what is good for them? of the love of lifeless objects we do not use the word 'friendship' Such friendships, then, are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves; for if the one party is no longer pleasant or useful the other ceases to love him. Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue. Between sour and elderly people friendship arises less readily, inasmuch as they are less good-tempered and enjoy companionship less. Most people seem, owing to ambition, to wish to be loved rather than to love. for man is naturally inclined to form couples-even more than to form cities, inasmuch as the household is earlier and more necessary than the city, and reproduction is more common to man with the animals But the friendship of utility is full of complaints; for as they use each other for their own interests they always want to get the better of the bargain, and think they have got less than they should, and blame their partners because they do not get all they 'want and deserve'; and those who do well by others cannot help them as much as those whom they benefit want. For they think that, as in a commercial partnership those who put more in get more out, so it should be in friendship.