Seneca：Seneca's Morals, Excerpt 48

But let us have a care, above all things, that our kindness be rightfully founded; for where there is any other invitation to friendship than the friendship itself, that friendship will be bought and sold. He derogates upon the majesty of it that makes it only dependent upon good fortune. It is a narrow consideration for a man to please himself in the thought of a friend, “because,” says he, “I shall have one to help me when I am sick, in prison, or in want.” A brave man should rather take delight in the contemplation of doing the same offices for another. He that loves a man for his own sake is in an error. A friendship of interest cannot last any longer than the interest itself, and this is the reason that men in prosperity are so much followed, and when a man goes down the wind, nobody comes near him.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56075
Locator：Excerpt 48 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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