Nicomachean Ethics

​Most people, on account of love of honor, seem to wish to be loved rather than to love; hence most people are lovers of flatterers. For the flatterer is a friend who is in an inferior position, or at least pretends to be so and to love more than he is loved; and being loved seems to be near to being honored, which indeed most people aim at. But they do not seem to choose honor for its own sake, but accidentally. For most people enjoy being honored by those in authority because of hope (for they think they will obtain from them whatever they may need; so they enjoy honor as a sign of receiving benefits); whereas those who desire honor from decent people who know them aim at confirming their own opinion of themselves; they enjoy it, then, because they believe they are good on the basis of the judgment of those who say so. But they enjoy being loved for its own sake; wherefore being loved would seem to be better than being honored, and friendship would seem to be desirable for its own sake. But friendship seems to consist in loving rather than in being loved. A sign of this is mothers who enjoy loving; for some give their children to be brought up by others, and they love them knowing them to be theirs, but they do not seek to be loved in return if both are not possible; rather, it seems to be enough for them if they see them doing well, and they themselves love them even if those children, through ignorance, render to their mother nothing of what is her due. Since, then, friendship consists more in loving, and those who love their friends are praised, loving seems to be the virtue of friends, so that those in whom this occurs in accordance with worth are lasting friends and their friendship is lasting. And in this way even those who are unequal would be friends in the highest degree; for they would be equalized. And equality and similarity are friendship, and especially the similarity of those in accordance with virtue; for being stable in themselves they remain stable toward one another, and they neither need bad things nor minister to such, but, so to speak, even prevent them; for it is characteristic of good people neither to err themselves nor to allow their friends to do so. But wicked people have no stability; for they do not even remain similar to themselves; and they become friends for only a short time, enjoying each other’s wickedness. But useful and pleasant friends remain so longer; for they do so as long as they provide pleasures or utility to one another. And friendship based on utility seems to arise most of all from opposites, for example, a poor person toward a rich, an ignorant toward one who knows; for what a person happens to be in need of, desiring this he gives something else in return. Here indeed one might drag in also a lover and a beloved, or a beautiful and an ugly person. Wherefore lovers also appear ridiculous sometimes, expecting to be loved in the way that they love; if they are similarly lovable, perhaps they might expect it, but when they have nothing of the sort, it is ridiculous. But perhaps the opposite does not desire the opposite for its own sake, but accidentally, and the desire is for the mean; for this is good, as for the dry not to become wet but to come to the mean, and likewise for the hot and the others. Let these things, however, be dismissed; for indeed they are somewhat foreign.