The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

he remains a man
that he will wish the greatest goods. But perhaps not all the
greatest goods; for it is for himself most of all that each man
wishes what is good.
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8
    Most people seem, owing to ambition, to wish to be loved rather
than to love; which is why most men love flattery; for the
flatterer is a friend in an inferior position, or pretends to be
such and to love more than he is loved; and being loved seems to be
akin to being honoured, and this is what most people aim at. But it
seems to be not for its own sake that people choose honour, but
incidentally. For most people enjoy being honoured by those in
positions of authority because of their hopes (for they think that
if they want anything they will get it from them; and therefore
they delight in honour as a token of favour to come); while those
who desire honour from good men, and men who know, are aiming at
confirming their own opinion of themselves; they delight in honour,
therefore, because they believe in their own goodness on the
strength of the judgement of those who speak about them. In being
loved, on the other hand, people delight for its own sake; whence
it would seem to be better than being honoured, and friendship to
be desirable in itself. But it seems to lie in loving rather than
in being loved, as is indicated by the delight mothers take in
loving; for some mothers hand over their children to be brought up,
and so long as they know their fate they love them and do not seek
to be loved in return (if they cannot have both), but seem to be
satisfied if they see them prospering; and they themselves love
their children even if these owing to their ignorance give them
nothing of a mother’s due. Now since friendship depends more on
loving, and it is those who love their friends that are praised,
loving seems to be the characteristic virtue of friends, so that it
is only those in whom this is found in due measure that are lasting
friends, and only their friendship that endures.
    It is in this way more than any other that even unequals can be
friends; they can be equalized. Now equality and likeness are
friendship, and especially the likeness of those who are like in
virtue; for being steadfast in themselves they hold fast to each
other, and neither ask nor give base services, but (one may say)
even prevent them; for it is characteristic of good men neither to
go wrong themselves nor to let their friends do so. But wicked men
have no steadfastness (for they do not remain even like to
themselves), but become friends for a short time because they
delight in each other’s wickedness. Friends who are useful or
pleasant last longer; i.e. as long as they provide each other with
enjoyments or advantages. Friendship for utility’s sake seems to be
that which most easily exists between contraries, e.g. between poor
and rich, between ignorant and learned; for what a man actually
lacks he aims at, and one gives something else in return. But under
this head, too, might bring lover and beloved, beautiful and ugly.
This is why lovers sometimes seem ridiculous, when they demand to
be loved as they love; if they are equally lovable their claim can
perhaps be justified, but when they have nothing lovable about them
it is ridiculous. Perhaps, however, contrary does not even aim at
contrary by its own nature, but only incidentally, the desire being
for what is intermediate; for that is what is good, e.g. it is good
for the dry not to become wet but to come to the intermediate
state, and similarly with the hot and in all other cases. These
subjects we may dismiss; for they are indeed somewhat foreign to
our inquiry.
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9
    Friendship and justice seem, as we have said at the outset of
our discussion, to be concerned with the same objects and exhibited
between the same persons. For in every community there is thought
to be some form of justice, and friendship too; at least men
address as friends their fellow-voyagers and fellowsoldiers, and so
too those associated with them in any other kind of community. And
the extent of their association is the extent of their friendship,
as it is the extent to which justice exists between them. And the
proverb ‘what friends have is common property’ expresses the truth;
for friendship depends on community. Now brothers and comrades have
all things in common, but the others to whom we have referred have
definite things in common-some more things, others fewer; for