The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

pleasantness is accompanied by virtue nor those
whose utility is with a view to noble objects, but in their desire
for pleasure they seek for ready-witted people, and their other
friends they choose as being clever at doing what they are told,
and these characteristics are rarely combined. Now we have said
that the good man is at the same time pleasant and useful; but such
a man does not become the friend of one who surpasses him in
station, unless he is surpassed also in virtue; if this is not so,
he does not establish equality by being proportionally exceeded in
both respects. But people who surpass him in both respects are not
so easy to find.
    However that may be, the aforesaid friendships involve equality;
for the friends get the same things from one another and wish the
same things for one another, or exchange one thing for another,
e.g. pleasure for utility; we have said, however, that they are
both less truly friendships and less permanent.
    But it is from their likeness and their unlikeness to the same
thing that they are thought both to be and not to be friendships.
It is by their likeness to the friendship of virtue that they seem
to be friendships (for one of them involves pleasure and the other
utility, and these characteristics belong to the friendship of
virtue as well); while it is because the friendship of virtue is
proof against slander and permanent, while these quickly change
(besides differing from the former in many other respects), that
they appear not to be friendships; i.e. it is because of their
unlikeness to the friendship of virtue.
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7
    But there is another kind of friendship, viz. that which
involves an inequality between the parties, e.g. that of father to
son and in general of elder to younger, that of man to wife and in
general that of ruler to subject. And these friendships differ also
from each other; for it is not the same that exists between parents
and children and between rulers and subjects, nor is even that of
father to son the same as that of son to father, nor that of
husband to wife the same as that of wife to husband. For the virtue
and the function of each of these is different, and so are the
reasons for which they love; the love and the friendship are
therefore different also. Each party, then, neither gets the same
from the other, nor ought to seek it; but when children render to
parents what they ought to render to those who brought them into
the world, and parents render what they should to their children,
the friendship of such persons will be abiding and excellent. In
all friendships implying inequality the love also should be
proportional, i.e. the better should be more loved than he loves,
and so should the more useful, and similarly in each of the other
cases; for when the love is in proportion to the merit of the
parties, then in a sense arises equality, which is certainly held
to be characteristic of friendship.
    But equality does not seem to take the same form in acts of
justice and in friendship; for in acts of justice what is equal in
the primary sense is that which is in proportion to merit, while
quantitative equality is secondary, but in friendship quantitative
equality is primary and proportion to merit secondary. This becomes
clear if there is a great interval in respect of virtue or vice or
wealth or anything else between the parties; for then they are no
longer friends, and do not even expect to be so. And this is most
manifest in the case of the gods; for they surpass us most
decisively in all good things. But it is clear also in the case of
kings; for with them, too, men who are much their inferiors do not
expect to be friends; nor do men of no account expect to be friends
with the best or wisest men. In such cases it is not possible to
define exactly up to what point friends can remain friends; for
much can be taken away and friendship remain, but when one party is
removed to a great distance, as God is, the possibility of
friendship ceases. This is in fact the origin of the question
whether friends really wish for their friends the greatest goods,
e.g. that of being gods; since in that case their friends will no
longer be friends to them, and therefore will not be good things
for them (for friends are good things). The answer is that if we
were right in saying that friend wishes good to friend for his
sake, his friend must remain the sort of being he is, whatever that
may be; therefore it is for him oily so long as