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But if all our friends want the same things at the same time, it is hard to satisfy all, in either their counsels, their public life, their ambitions, or their dispensing of hospitality. And if at one and the same time they chance to be occupied in diverse activities and experiences, and call upon us at the same instant, one to join him on a voyage to foreign parts, another to help him in defending a suit, another to sit with him as judge, another to help him in managing his buying and selling, another to help him to celebrate his wedding, another to mourn with him at a funeral, The language here seems to be an amplification of Aristotle, Ethica Nicom. ix. 10. The city is with burning incense filled; Full too of joyous hymns and doleful groans Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 4; cited by Plutarch also in Moralia, 169 D, 445 D, and 623 C. is the possession of a host of friends. It is impossible to be with them all, and unnatural to be with none, and yet to do a service to one alone, and thus to offend many, is a source of vexation; For fond affection does not brook neglect.A line from Menander, cited also in Moralia, 491 C; cf. Kock, Com. Attic. Frag. iii. p. 213.
