Friendship

Some of Aristotle's ideas in his Books on Friendship seem so much like common sense that I have to strain to consider whether or not there was ever a time when these ideas about friendship were not common sense, eg: the idea that true friends sincerely wish the best for each other, while lesser friends use others with the improper intent-solely utility or pleasure. And pharses like the following:

"Most people want to be loved rather than to love... But friendship seems to consist more in giving that in recieving affection."

But I like, unlike Plato, who could theoretically be a happy man in the world even on a desert island, Aristotle reminds me that while man might be happy by himself, his happiness is far enriched, made even more complete, with deep friendships.

"... man can be content and self-sufficient alone, but it would surely be paradoxical to represent the man of perfect happiness as solitary; for nobody would choose to have all the good things in the world by himself, because man IS a social creature and naturally constituted to live in company... the happy man needs friendships."

"[Friendship] is... most necessary for living. Nobody would choose to live without friendship even if he had all the good things."

And I like the reminder that friendship is a limited resource, and a rare thing. One can be on good terms with many, but one cannot be very close friends with all, because factors like time and shared activity and the effort of intimacy and common dispositions/levels of character are involved. Goodwill is not friendship, though a part of it.