Friends
group · 7 works · 9 mentions · 17 anchored passages
friends · comrades · children · closest friends · faithful friends · friend · loved by friends · man of goodwill · men who are my friends · necessary friends
in the texts
Hiero
Those bound by affection and mutual aid; Hiero argues despots are especially deprived of them.
You said that you envy us our unrivalled power to confer benefits on our friends, and our unrivalled success in crushing our enemies.
moreover you have servants many in number and excellent in accomplishments and you are rich in power to harm enemies and reward friends.
First let us consider whether friendship is a great blessing to mankind.
Memorabilia
Social companions or patrons whose aid, affection, and reciprocal favors matter in moral and practical life.
many help friends and do good to their country and for this cause earn gratitude;
Considering the nature of Envy, he found it to be a kind of pain, not, however, at a friend’s misfortune, nor at an enemy’s good fortune, but the envious are those only who are annoyed at their friends’ successes.
Don’t suppose you are going to hunt friends, the noblest game in the world, by such crude methods.
Exhortation to the Newly Baptized
Companions toward whom the addressee should avoid contentiousness and mockery.
Be not contentious toward your friends, nor a mocker against them and a maker of jests;
Orations
Those the king loves and treats as necessary companions, distinguished from kin by the possibility of dissolving the bond.
And the living he loves most of all, and counts them necessary friends.
For friends one may dissolve relations with, when one has discerned some unpleasantness in them;
To Antipater
The valued companions and beneficiaries whose loyalty, usefulness, and need for care motivate Isocrates' intervention.
for everything else I have neglected and have had thought for this one thing alone—to show my zeal on behalf of men who are my friends and who have become very dear to me.
In addition to these good qualities he possesses frankness in the highest degree, not that outspokenness which is objectionable, but that which would rightly be regarded as the surest indication of devotion to his friends.
and partly believing you are not unaware that the most agreeable and profitable of all things is to win by one’s kind deeds friends who are at the same time both loyal and useful, and to befriend men of such character that on their account many others also will be grateful to you.
To Nicocles
Friends are the king's associates, advisers, kin, and gift-givers, valued when they are loyal, truthful, and useful for rule.
and do you, recalling what I said in the beginning, desire that your other friends also shall bring you, not the usual presents, which you purchase at a much greater cost from those who give than from those who sell, but gifts of such a nature that, even though you make hard use of them every day without fail, you will never wear them out, but will, on the contrary, enlarge them and increase their worth.
furthermore, freedom of speech and the privilege which is openly granted to friends to rebuke and to enemies to attack each other’s faults;
Do not give your friendship to everyone who desires it, but only to those who are worthy of you;
Economics
Friends are a social group who can be wealth when useful, can expect help, witness promises, and exemplify loyalty around Cyrus.
For this occupation seemed to be the easiest to learn and the pleasantest to work at, to give to the body the greatest measure of strength and beauty, and to leave to the mind the greatest amount of spare time for attending to the interests of one’s friends and city.
But your friends, though far better supplied with means to support their establishment than you, yet look to receive help from you.
Socrates, exclaimed Critobulus on hearing this, I don’t intend to let you go now, until you have proved to my satisfaction what you have promised in the presence of our friends here to prove.