We have now discussed continence and incontinence, and pleasure
and pain, both what each is and in what sense some of them are good
and others bad; it remains to speak of friendship.
BOOK VIII
1
AFTER what we have said, a discussion of friendship would
naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue, and is
besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no
one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men
and those in possession of office and of dominating power are
thought to need friends most of all; for what is the use of such
prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence, which is
exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards friends? Or
how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without friends? The
greater it is, the more exposed is it to risk. And in poverty and in
other misfortunes men think friends are the only refuge. It helps
the young, too, to keep from error; it aids older people by
ministering to their needs and supplementing the activities that are
failing from weakness; those in the prime of life it stimulates to
noble actions-'two going together'-for with friends men are more
able both to think and to act.
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