Essays, Civil and Moral

Cicero's two late essays, written in 44 BC, on growing old and on what actually binds friends together. His argument is that real friendship is only possible between people of good character, and that it cannot be bought or traded.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The complete essays in the Cotton translation, including Of Friendship, written after the death of Etienne de La Boetie. Montaigne insists the bond he is describing shows up perhaps once in three centuries.

Michel de Montaigne

Both series of Emerson's essays, including Friendship, where he treats a friend as a paradox: someone you need badly and must still leave completely free. Clean modern typeset edition.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Books eight and nine hold the oldest sustained analysis of friendship in Western philosophy. Aristotle sorts friendship into three kinds, built on usefulness, pleasure, or character, and argues only the last one survives.

Aristotle