Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC) the Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer and political theorist as a humanist deeply influenced the culture of the Renaissance, and as a republican the Founding Fathers of the United States and the revolutionaries of the French Revolution. Among Cicero´s best and most enduring works are the ones he wrote at his estate in Tusculum after leaving Rome. One of them is On Friendship, from which I have selected these brief excerpts - still very true:
Real friendship is even more potent than kinship; for the latter may exist without good will, whereas friendship can do no such thing. You can see its unique power when you consider this point. The bonds which nature has established to link one member of the human race with another are innumerable; but friendship not only surpasses them all but is something so choice and selective that its manifestations are normally restricted to two persons and two persons only - or at most extremely few.
Friendship may be defined as a complete identity of feeling about all things in heaven and earth: an identity which is strengthened by mutual good will and affection. With the single exception of wisdom, I am inclined to regard it as the greatest of all gifts the gods have bestowed upon mankind. Some people, I know, give preference to riches, or good health, or power, or public honours. And many rank sensuous pleasures highest of all. But feelings of that kind are something which any animal can experience: and the other items in that list, too, are thoroughly transient and uncertain. They do not hang on our own decision at all, but are entirely at the mercy of fickle chance. Another school of thought believes that the supreme blessing is moral goodness; and this is the right view. Moreover, this is the quality to which friendship owes its entire origin and character. Without goodness it cannot even exist.
Friendship, on the other hand, serves a great host of different purposes all at the same time. In whatever direction you turn, it still remains yours. No barrier can shut it it out. It can never be untimely; it can never be in the way. We need friendship all the time, just as much as we need the proverbial prime necessities of life, fire and and water. I am not speaking of ordinary commonplace friendships, delightful and valuable though they can be. What I have in mind instead is the authentic, truly admirable sort of relationship, the sort that was embodied in those rare pairs of famous friends.
Friendship, then, both adds a brighter glow to prosperity and relieves adversity by dividing and sharing the burden. And another is of its very many and remarkable advantages is this. It is unique because of the bright rays of hope it projects into the future; it never allows the spirit to falter or fall. When a man thinks of a true friend, he is looking at himself in the mirror. Even when a friend is absent, he is present all the same. However poor he is, he is rich; hoever weak, he is strong.
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