1Let this, then, be established as the first law of friendship: that we ask honourable things of our friends and do honourable things for our friends' sake; that we do not even wait to be asked; that zeal be always present and hesitation absent; that we dare to give true advice freely; that in friendship the influence of friends who give good counsel should carry the greatest weight, and that it be used to admonish not only openly but even sharply, if the case demands, and that it be obeyed when so used. 45For certain men who, I hear, were thought wise in Greece held, I believe, some astonishing views (but there is nothing they do not pursue with their subtleties): partly, that excessive friendships should be avoided, so that one man need not be anxious for many; 45that each has enough and more than enough of his own affairs; 45that to be too much entangled in those of others is a burden; 45that it is most convenient to hold the reins of friendship as loosely as possible, so that you may either draw them in when you wish or let them out; 45for the chief thing for living happily, they say, is freedom from care, which the mind cannot enjoy if one man is, as it were, in labour for many.
46Others, they say, assert something even more inhuman, a point I touched on briefly a little earlier: that friendships should be sought for the sake of protection and help, not of goodwill and affection; 46and so, the less firmness and the less strength each person had, the more eagerly he would seek friendships: hence it comes about that weak women seek the protection of friendships more than men do, the needy more than the rich, and the unfortunate more than those who are thought happy. 47What splendid wisdom! 47For those who remove friendship from life seem to remove the sun from the world, and we have nothing better from the immortal gods than friendship, nothing more delightful.
47For what is this freedom from care of theirs? 47Attractive indeed in appearance, but in reality to be rejected on many grounds. 47For it is not consistent either to refuse to undertake any honourable thing or action, or to lay it down once undertaken, merely to avoid anxiety. 47But if we flee from care, we must flee from virtue, which must necessarily, not without some care, scorn and hate the things contrary to itself, as goodness hates malice, temperance lust, and courage cowardice. 47And so you may see that it is the just who are most pained by injustice, the brave by cowardice, the self-controlled by depravity. 47It is therefore the mark of a well-ordered mind both to rejoice at good things and to grieve at their opposites.
48Wherefore, if grief of mind befalls the wise man, as it surely does, unless we think that humanity has been rooted out of his mind, what reason is there why we should remove friendship from life altogether, so as not to take on some troubles because of it? 48For if the emotions of the mind are taken away, what difference is there, I do not say between a beast and a man, but between a man and a tree-trunk or a stone or anything else of that kind? 48Nor should we listen to those who would have virtue be something hard and, as it were, made of iron; 48for in many things, and especially in friendship, it is tender and pliant, so that it expands, as it were, at a friend's good fortune and contracts at his misfortunes.
48Wherefore the anguish which must often be borne for a friend is not strong enough to remove friendship from life, any more than the virtues should be rejected because they bring some cares and troubles.