But in poverty also, and in the other misfortunes, people think friends are the only refuge. Moreover, the young need friends to keep them from error…. The old need friends to care for them and support the actions that fail because of weakness [1155a12-15].

Further, a parent would seem to have a natural friendship for a child, and a child for a parent, not only among human beings but also among birds and most kinds of animals…. Moreover, friendship would seem to hold cities together, and legislators would seem to be more concerned about it than about justice [1155a19-24].

2. Now love for an inanimate thing is not called friendship, since there is no mutual loving, and no wishing of good to it. For it would presumably be ridiculous to wish good things to wine; the most you wish is its preservation so that you can have it. [A] To a friend, however, it is said, you must wish goods for his own sake. If you wish good things in this way but the same wish is not returned by the other, you would be said to have only goodwill for the other. For friendship is said to be reciprocated goodwill [1155b29-35].

But perhaps we should add that friends are aware of the reciprocated goodwill. For many a one has goodwill to people whom he has not seen but supposes to be decent or useful, and one of these might have the same goodwill toward him. These people, then, apparently have goodwill to each other, but how could we call them friends, given that they are unaware of their attitude to each other? If they are to be friends, then, they must have goodwill to each other, wish each other goods and be aware of it, from one of the causes mentioned above.

3. Hence friendship has three species, corresponding to the three objects of love. For each object of love has a corresponding type of mutual loving, combined with awareness of it [1155b35-1156a5].

4. There is also a puzzle about whether one ought to love oneself or someone else most of all; for those who like themselves most are criticized and denounced as self-lovers, as though this were something shameful. The decent person, on the contrary acts for what is fine, all the more the better his is, and for his friends sake, disregarding his own [interest] [1168a29-35].

5. It is quite true that, as they say, the excellent person labors for his friends and for his native country, and will die for them if he must; he will sacrifice money, honors, and contested goods in general, in achieving the fine for himself. For he will chose intense pleasure for a short time over slight pleasure for a long time a year of living finely over many years of undistinguished life; and a single fine and great action over many small actions. This is presumably true of one who dies for others; he does indeed choose something great and fine for himself. He is also ready to sacrifice money as long as his friends profit; for the friends gain money while he gains the fine, and so he awards himself the greater good…. In everything praise worthy, then, the excellent person awards himself the fine. In this way, then, we must be self-lovers, as we said. But in the way the many are, we ought not to be [1169a19-1169b35].