Browse 10 quotations connecting Cicero with Friendship, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Each quotation is included because its central idea connects with this theme, not simply because one matching word appears in the sentence.
Sources represented here include De Amicitia, Laelius on Friendship. Keeping the work and source note beside each quotation makes differences in setting, speaker and emphasis easier to see.
Sources represented here include De Amicitia, Laelius on Friendship.
“A true friend is, as it were, another self.”
The phrase captures the intimacy of friendship: another person becomes close enough that concern for them resembles concern for oneself.
Source note: Cicero’s De Amicitia describes true friendship as transferring natural self-love into a bond with another person.
“Friendship springs from nature rather than from need.”
Friendship is not reduced to usefulness; Cicero argues that it arises from natural affection before calculations of advantage.
Source note: De Amicitia argues that the best friendship is sought for its own sake rather than for revenue or convenience.
“Friendship has more advantages than I can easily name.”
The value of friendship is intentionally left larger than a checklist, because companionship affects many parts of life at once.
Source note: Cicero develops the many practical and moral benefits of friendship throughout De Amicitia.
“Firm, steadfast, self-consistent men are to be chosen as friends.”
Reliable friendship depends on reliable character; steadiness matters because trust cannot grow when conduct constantly changes with advantage.
Source note: De Amicitia advises choosing friends whose character is firm and consistent.
“Such friendship at once enhances the lustre of prosperity, and by dividing and sharing adversity lessens its burden.”
A good friend does not matter only in crisis: companionship can enlarge good fortune while also making hardship easier to carry because difficulty is no longer borne alone.
Source note: De Amicitia, section 6–7 transition, Project Gutenberg #7491. Cicero contrasts true and perfect friendship with merely moderate association and emphasizes its usefulness in both prosperity and adversity.
“Friendship is nothing else than entire fellow feeling as to all things human and divine with mutual good-will and affection.”
Cicero defines the strongest friendship as a broad sharing of concern, judgment and goodwill rather than a narrow exchange of favors or useful contacts.
Source note: De Amicitia, section 6, Project Gutenberg #7491. Laelius is the dialogue speaker in Cicero’s philosophical treatment of friendship; the sentence defines friendship through mutual goodwill and affection.
“Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy?”
Good fortune becomes more meaningful when it can be shared, making companionship part of the value of prosperity itself.
Source note: Laelius on Friendship; the surrounding passage pairs shared joy with support during misfortune.
“What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself?”
Close friendship creates a rare space for frank speech because confidence in the other person removes the need for continual self-protection.
Source note: Laelius on Friendship, translated by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh in Project Gutenberg’s Treatises on Friendship and Old Age.
“You might just as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life; for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful.”
Friendship is treated not as an optional ornament but as one of the basic goods that makes ordinary life worth inhabiting.
Source note: Laelius on Friendship, Shuckburgh translation.
“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.”
Cicero presents friendship as suited to human nature because it serves both celebration and hardship rather than belonging to only one circumstance.
Source note: Laelius on Friendship; Laelius frames friendship as useful and natural in both good and difficult times.