Friendships

"One of the great truths of life is that you can choose your friends. There is a different love that flesh and blood cannot guarantee: the love of a friend who knows you, doesn’t judge you, and will be there for you no matter what. To have a good friend is the purest of all gifts: it is not inherited as with a family. It is not compelling as with a child. And it has no means of physical pleasure as with a mate. It is, therefore, an indescribable bond that brings with it a far deeper devotion than all the others."
-Frances Farmer, actress.

Aristotle elaborates on the kinds of things we seek in proper friendship, suggesting that the proper basis for these loyalties is objective: those who share our dispositions, who bear no grudges, who seek what we do, who are temperate, and just, who admire us appropriately as we admire them, and so forth. This type of love could not emanate from those who are aggressive in manner and personality, quarrelsome, gossips, who are unjust, and so forth.

"All love that has not friendship for its base is like a mansion built upon the sand."
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet.

"Friends show their love—in times of trouble, not in happiness."
-Euripides, playwright