People who are supremely happy, too, have no need of useful
friends, but do need pleasant friends; for they wish to live with some
one and, though they can endure for a short time what is painful, no
one could put up with it continuously, nor even with the Good itself
if it were painful to him; this is why they look out for friends who
are pleasant. Perhaps they should look out for friends who, being
pleasant, are also good, and good for them too; for so they will
have all the characteristics that friends should have.
People in positions of authority seem to have friends who fall
into distinct classes; some people are useful to them and others are
pleasant, but the same people are rarely both; for they seek neither
those whose pleasantness is accompanied by virtue nor those whose
utility is with a view to noble objects, but in their desire for
pleasure they seek for ready-witted people, and their other friends
they choose as being clever at doing what they are told, and these
characteristics are rarely combined. Now we have said that the good
man is at the same time pleasant and useful; but such a man does not
become the friend of one who surpasses him in station, unless he is
surpassed also in virtue; if this is not so, he does not establish
equality by being proportionally exceeded in both respects.
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