On friendship

“CONSEQUENTLY youths, who find much pleasure in conversation and readily agree with others, quickly make friends. This does not happen with old people, for they cannot become friends of those whose company and conversation they do not enjoy. The same reason holds for morose persons who are quarrelsome and critical of what others do. But such people, i.e., the elderly and the severe, can be benevolent inasmuch as they affectively wish good to others and even effectively assist them in their needs. However, they do not really become friends because they do not live with nor take pleasure in the company of their friends—activities that seem to be the special works of friendship.”

~St. Thomas Aquinas: Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Book 8, Lect. VI

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