78
In short: there is but one security and one provision against these ills and annoyances, and that is, neither to enlist your love too quickly nor to fix it on unworthy men.
79
Now they are worthy of friendship who have within their own souls the reason for their being loved. A rare class indeed! And really everything splendid is rare, and nothing is harder to find than something which in all respects is a perfect specimen of its kind. But the majority of men recognize nothing whatever in human experience ence as good unless it brings some profit and they regard their friends as they do their cattle, valuing most highly those which give hope of the largest gain.
80
Thus do they fail to attain that loveliest, most spontaneous friendship, which is desirable in and for itself; and they do not learn from their own experience what the power of such friendship is and are ignorant of its nature and extent. For everyone loves himself, not with a view of acquiring some profit for himself from his self-love, but because he is dear to himself on his own account; and unless this same feeling were transferred to friendship, the real friend would never be found; for he is, as it were, another self.
