Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“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.”
- Source
- Laelius on Friendship
- Date
- 44 BCE
- Local voice
- Dialogue speaker · Gaius Laelius
- English wording
- Evelyn S. Shuckburgh — Translator · from Latin
Meaning of “You might just as well take the sun…”
Friendship is treated not as an optional ornament but as one of the basic goods that makes ordinary life worth inhabiting.
Where does it come from?
Laelius on Friendship, Shuckburgh translation.
Why the local voice matters
Laelius on Friendship / De Amicitia. Laelius is the principal dialogue speaker in Cicero’s framed treatment of friendship.
