Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
A friend to all is a friend to none.
The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.
Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods.
What is evil neither can nor should be loved; for it is not ones duty to be a lover of evil or to become like what is bad; and we have said that like is dear to like. Must the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off? Or is this not so in all cases, but only when ones friends are incurable in their wickedness? If they are capable of being reformed one should rather come to the assistance of their character or their property, inasmuch as this is better and more characteristic of friendship. But a man who breaks off such a friendship would seem to be doing nothing strange; for it was not to a man of this sort that he was a friend; when his friend changed, therefore, and he is unable to save him, he gives him up.
Friends are a comfort in misfortune but one should not make them unhappy by seeking their sympathy...