6 Friendship is nothing else than entire fellow feeling as to all things
human and divine with mutual good-will and affection; [1] and I doubt
whether anything better than this, wisdom alone excepted, has been given
to, man by the immortal gods Some prefer riches to it, some, sound
health, some, power, some, posts of honor, many, even sensual
gratification. This last properly belongs to beasts, the others are
precarious and uncertain, dependent not on our own choice so much as on
the caprice of Fortune. Those, indeed, who regard virtue as the supreme
good are entirely in the right, but it is virtue itself that produces
and sustains friendship, not without virtue can friendship by any
possibility exist. In saying this, however I would interpret virtue in
accordance with our habits of speech and of life, not defining it, as
some philosophers do, by high-sounding words, but numbering on the list
of good men those who are commonly so regarded,--the Pauli, the Catos,
the Galli, the Scipios, the Phili Mankind in general [1 It may be
doubted whether this close conformity of opinion and feeling is
essential, or even favorable to friendship. The amicable comparison and
collision of thought and sentiment are certainly consistent with, and
often conducive to the most friendly intimacy Friends are not
infrequently the complements, rather than the likeness, of each other
Cicero and Atticus were as close friends as Scipio and Laelius; but they
were at many points exceedingly unlike. Atticus had the tact and skill
in worldly matters, which Cicero lacked. Atticus kept aloof from public
affairs while Cicero was unhappy whenever he could not imagine himself
as taking a leading part in them. Atticus was an Epicurran, and Cicero
never lost an opportunity of attacking the Epicurean philosophy.] are
content with these. Let us then leave out of the account such good men
as are nowhere to be found. Among such good men as there really are,
friendship has more advantages than I can easily name. In the first,