For as we are not beneficent and liberal with any view of extorting gratitude, and do not regard an act of kindness as an investment, but follow a natural inclination to liberality; so we look on friendship as worth trying for, not because we are attracted to it by the expectation of ulterior gain, but in the conviction that what it has to give us is from first to last included in the feeling itself.
Where these words come from
- Lots of sources credit Cicero with this, and they agree with each other. The book or the speech it first came from hasn't turned up yet.
- https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2808/pg2808-images.html
More from Cicero
See allConstant practice devoted to one subject often prevails over both ability and skill.
CiceroLearning is a kind of natural food for the mind.CiceroYet such is the pleasure I take in recalling our friendship, that I look upon my life as having been a happy one because I have spent it with Scipio.CiceroWith him I was associated in public and private business; with him I lived in Rome and served abroad; and between us there was the most complete harmony in our tastes, our pursuits, and our sentiments, which is the true secret of friendship.CiceroAll I can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or adversity.CiceroBut I must at the very beginning lay down this principle— friendship can only exist between good men.Cicero
CiceroLearning is a kind of natural food for the mind.CiceroYet such is the pleasure I take in recalling our friendship, that I look upon my life as having been a happy one because I have spent it with Scipio.CiceroWith him I was associated in public and private business; with him I lived in Rome and served abroad; and between us there was the most complete harmony in our tastes, our pursuits, and our sentiments, which is the true secret of friendship.CiceroAll I can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or adversity.CiceroBut I must at the very beginning lay down this principle— friendship can only exist between good men.CiceroMore on friendship
It takes a village to raise a child.African proverbThe typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one.'
C.S. LewisMy friends are my 'estate.' Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them.
Emily DickinsonWithout friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
AristotleThe only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo EmersonIs it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?
Confucius
C.S. LewisMy friends are my 'estate.' Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them.Emily DickinsonWithout friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.AristotleThe only way to have a friend is to be one.Ralph Waldo EmersonIs it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?Confucius