Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle (384–322 BC) was Plato's student and Alexander the Great's tutor, and founded the Lyceum in Athens. His work spans logic, biology, ethics, politics, rhetoric and poetics — effectively the whole of the knowledge available to him. The Nicomachean Ethics, where he develops virtue as a mean between extremes, is still read as a living text.
About this theme: Friendship
Aristotle gave friendship two books of the Nicomachean Ethics, more than he gave justice, and distinguished three kinds: friendship for use, for pleasure, and for the friend's own sake. The first two last as long as the reason lasts; the third is rare and slow, and the only one he considered complete.
More by Aristotle
More on Friendship
- No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.— Charles Dickens
- A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.— Elbert Hubbard
- Associate with people who are likely to improve you.— Seneca
- A friend is, as it were, a second self.— Cicero
- If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.— Booker T. Washington