on friends

I say that true friends are the most precious of all this world's blessings: they are not even to be reckoned as worldly goods, but as divine, since worthless fate does not bring them forth, but rather God, who created them naturally as kinsmen. For in this world a man desires everything else because he may thereby acquire either power or worldly pleasure, except a faithful friend. One loves a friend sometimes out of affection, sometimes out of trust, even though no other return is expected from him. Nature joins and cements friends together with an inseparable love.

000000-- Wisdom speaking,
00000000Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, XXIV.3

n.b. just to be clear, I have no problem with either power nor worldly pleasure... :p