Book 7
46
although in all matters it seems the mark of a sensible man to choose the better of two things, and if he had been wearing his worse coat for a long time and had not yet worn his better one, the better one ought to be chosen—but you ought not in place of an old friend to choose one whom you do not know to be a better man. For a friend is not to be had without trial and is not a matter of a single day, but time is needed; hence the peck of salt has come to be proverbial.
47
At the same time if a friend is really to be your friend he must be not only good absolutely but also good to you; for a man is good absolutely by being good, but he is a friend by being good to another, and he is both good absolutely and a friend when both these attributes harmonize together, so that what is good absolutely is also good for another person; or also he may be not good absolutely yet good to another because useful.
48
But being a friend of many people at once is prevented even by the factor of affection, for it is not possible for affection to be active in relation to many at once.
49
These things, therefore, show the correctness of the saying that friendship is a thing to be relied on, just as happiness is a thing that is self-sufficing. And it has been rightly said Eur. El. 941.: Nature is permanent, but wealth is not— although it would be much finer to say Friendship than Nature.Or, emending the text, that friendship is goodness of nature.
50
And it is proverbial that time shows a friend, and also misfortunes more than good fortune. For then the truth of the saying friends’ possessions are common property is clear for only friends, instead of the natural goods and natural evils on which good and bad fortune turn, choose a human being rather than the presence of the former and the absence of the latter;
