Book 9
6
The doer’s achievement therefore remains, for nobility or beauty is long-lived, but its utility to the recipient passes away.This sentence in the MSS. follows the next. But while the actuality of the present, the hope of the future, and the memory of the past are all pleasant, actuality is the most pleasant of the three, and the most loved. Also whereas the memory of noble things is pleasant, that of useful ones is hardly at all so, or at least less so; although with anticipation the reverse seems to be the case.
6
Again, loving seems to be an active experience, being loved a passive one; hence affection and the various forms of friendly feeling are naturally found in the more active party to the relationship.
7
Again, everybody loves a thing more if it has cost him trouble: for instance those who have made money love money more than those who have inherited it. Now to receive a benefit seems to involve no labor, but to confer one is an effort. (This is why mothers love their children more than fathers, because parenthood costs the mother more trouble [and the mother is more certain that the child is her own].This seems an irrelevant insertion from 8.12.2 f.) This also then would seem to be a characteristic of benefactors.
