the definition of friendship essay

• About Project
• Testimonials

Business Management Ideas

Essay on Friendship

List of essays on friendship, essay on friendship – short essay for kids (essay 1 – 150 words), essay on friendship – 10 lines on friendship written in english (essay 2 – 250 words), essay on friendship – for school students (class 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) (essay 3 – 300 words), essay on friendship – for students (essay 4 – 400 words), essay on friendship (essay 5 – 500 words), essay on friendship – introduction, benefits and qualities (essay 6 – 600 words), essay on friendship – essay on true friendship (essay 7 – 750 words), essay on friendship – importance, types, examples and conclusion (essay 8 – 1000 words).

Friendship is a divine relationship, which is defined by neither blood nor any other similarity. Who is in this world does not have a friend?

A friend, with whom you just love to spend your time, can share your joys and sorrows. Most importantly you need not fake yourself and just be what you are. That is what friendship is all about. It is one of the most beautiful of the relations in the world. Students of today need to understand the values of friendship and therefore we have composed different long essays for students as well as short essays.

Audience: The below given essays are exclusively written for school students (Class 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 Standard).

Introduction:

Friendship is considered as one of the treasures that anyone can possess. God has given us the liberty to choose friends because they are for our lifetime. It is quite normal for our parents and siblings to love us because they are our own blood but a friend is someone who is initially a stranger and then takes his/her place above all the other relations. Friendship is nothing but pure love without any expectations.

Role of a Friend:

True friends share and support each other even during the toughest of times. A true friend is one who feels happy for our success, who feel sad for our failures, fight with us for silly things and hugs us the next second, gets angry on us when we do any mistakes. Friendship is all about having true friends who can understand us without the need for us to speak.

Conclusion:

Friendship is very essential for a happy life. Even a two-minute chat with a friend will make us forget our worries. That is the strength of friendship.

Friendship is a divine relationship, which is defined by neither blood nor any other similarity. Friends are those you can choose for yourself in spite of the difference you both have from each other. A good friend in need will do wonders in your life, whenever you are in need of self-realization, upbringing your confidence and more.

Friendship serves you best not only in your happiest moments but also when you feel low in emotions. A life without a good friend is not at all complete and an emptiness will be felt all the time you think of sharing your emotion that can’t be told to anyone else.

Honesty and Patience in Friendship:

To maintain and keep going with a good deep friendship, honesty is the most important factor. You should choose a person who can be cent percent honest with you in all perspective like emotions, decision making, etc. Trustworthy friendship will help you to take better decisions and choose a better path for your future well-being.

Tolerance and patience with each other are another important characteristics of long-lasting friendship. Accepting the differences, friends should be able to be with each other in all situations. As a friend, the person should lead the other to success by being a motivation and criticize the person if they choose the wrong path.

Friendship will give you sweet and happy memories that can be cherished for a lifetime and if you succeed in maintaining that precious relation, then you are the luckiest person in this world. Love and care for each other will cherish the relationship and helps the person to appreciate each thing done without any fail.

Of all the different relations which we indulge in, friendship is considered to be the purest of them all. Friendship is the true confluence of souls with like minded attitude that aids in seamless conversation and the best of times. It is believed that a person who doesn’t have any friend lives one of the toughest lives.

The Desire to Belong:

Each one of us have been so programmed that we need a companion even if it’s not romantic, someone just to tag along. There are several definitions of friendship and it is upon you as to how you believe your relation to be. Friendship can happen when you are simply sharing a bowl of food with a person day after day. It can be expressed in the way you silently care for someone even when they may not be aware of your existence.

The Little Moments that Matter:

It is giving up the little things you love dearly for the sake of someone you cherish a great deal. Friendship often refers to the little moments of senseless laugh you two share when the rest of the world starts to look bleak. It is to know what your friend needs and being there for them even when the rest of the world has turned their back towards them.

Friendship is the kind of relation which sometimes even exceeds the realms of love because it is all about giving without even once bothering to sense what you shall get back. Every time spent is special because when you are with friends, you don’t feel the blues!

The Bottom-Line:

Of course the definition of friendship is going to vary a great deal from one person to another. But, remember one thing, when you are friends with someone, be prepared to put your heart on the line for their happiness because friendship often manifests into love, even if it is not romantic, it always is true!

Friendship is the most valuable as well as precious gifts of life. Friendship is one of the most valued relationship. People who have good friends enjoy the most in their live. True friendship is based on loyalty & support. A good friend is a person who will stand with you when times are tough. A friend is someone special on whom you can rely on to celebrate a special moment. Friendship is like a life asset and it can lead us to success. It all depends on our choice how we choose our friends.

The quality of friendship is essential for happiness. The benefits of healthy friendship remains long-life. In addition, having a strong friend circle also improves our self-confidence. Due to the strong relationship, we get much emotional support during our bad times. True friendship is a feeling of love & care.

Real friendship cannot be built within limited boundaries like caste or creed. It gives us a feeling that someone really needs us & we are not alone. This is true that man cannot live alone. True friends are needed in every stage of life to survive. A true friend can be an old person or a child. But it is generally believed that we make friend with people who are of the same age as ours. Same age group can give you the freedom to share anything.

The selection of a true friend is also a challenging task. We have to carefully make our friend selection. Friends might come & go. They will make you laugh & cry. Wrong selection can create various problems for you. In the modern world, many youngsters become a social nuisance. The reason behind it is wrong & bad friendships.

But if we successfully choose the right person as a friend then our life becomes easier. It doesn’t matter who you are, what type of clothes you wear. The most important thing is trust because the relation of friendship stands on the pillars of trust.

Friendship is a relation which can make or break us in every stage of life. But in other words, friendship is an asset which is really precious. Obviously, it is also not so easy to maintain friendships. It demands your time as well as efforts. Last but not the least, it is hard to find true friendship but once you succeed in this task you will have a wonderful time. In exchange for that a friend will only need your valuable time and trust.

The idea of friendship is either heartwarming or gives cold feet depending on individuals and the types of friendships. In the current world, friendships have had different definitions based on the morality and civilization of the society. Ideally, friendship is defined as the state of mutual trust between individuals or parties. Trust is an important component of friendship because it determines the reliability and longevity of the friendship. Trust is built through honest communications between the individuals and interested parties.

Once trust has been established, mutual understanding and support being to form the resulting in a friendship. This friendship can be broken through lack of trust. Trust can be breached through deceit and/ or some people, it differs with the frequencies. There are people who will break friendships after only one episode of dishonesty whereas some people give second chances and even more chances. Friendship types determine the longevity and the causes of breakups. The importance of friendship in the lives of individuals is the reason why friendships are formed in the first place.

Types of Friendships:

According to Aristotle’s Nichomachean ethics, there are three types of friendships. The friendships are based on three factors i.e. utility, pleasure and goodness. The first type of friendship is based on utility and has been described as a friendship whereby both parties gain from each other.

This type of friendship is dependent on the benefits and that is what keeps the friendship going. This type of friendships do not last long because it dissolves as soon as the benefits are outsourced or when other sources are found outside the friendship. The friendship was invented for trade purposes because when two people with opposite things that depend on each other re put together, trade is maximized.

The second type of friendship is based on pleasure. This is described as friendship in which two individuals are drawn to each other based on desires of pleasure and is characterized by passionate feelings and feelings of belonging. This type of friendship can ether last long or is short-lived depending on the presence of the attraction between the two parties.

The third type of friendship is based on goodness. In this friendship, the goodness of people draw them to each other and they usually have the same virtues. The friendship involves loving each other and expecting goodness. It takes long to develop this kind of friendship but it usually lasts longest and is actually the best kind of friendship to be in. the importance of such a friendship is the social support and love.

In conclusion, friendships are important in the lives of individuals. Trust builds and sustains friendships. The different types of friendships are important because they provide benefits and social support. Friendships provide a feeling of belonging and dependence. The durability of friendships is dependent on the basis of its formation and the intention during the formation. Friendships that last long are not based on materialistic gain, instead, they are based on pure emotion.

Friendship is an emotion of care, mutual trust, and fondness among two persons. A friend might be a work-mate, buddy, fellow student or any individual with whom we feel an attachment.

In friendship, people have a mutual exchange of sentiments and faith too. Usually, the friendship nurtures more amongst those people who belong to a similar age as they possess the same passions, interests, sentiments, and opinions. During the school days, kids who belong to the similar age group have a common dream about their future and this makes them all of them get closer in friendship.

In the same way, employees working in business organizations also make friends as they are working together for attaining the organizational objectives. It does not matter that to which age group you belong, friendship can happen at any time of your life.

Benefits of Friendship:

Sometimes friendship is essential in our life. Below are a few benefits of friendship.

1. It’s impossible to live your life alone always but friendship fills that gap quickly with the friend’s company.

2. You can easily pass the rigidities of life with the friendship as in your distress period your friends are always there to help you.

3. Friendship teaches you how to remain happy in life.

4. In case of any confusion or problem, your friendship will always benefit you with good opinions.

True and Dishonest Friendship:

True friendship is very rare in today’s times. There are so many persons who support only those people who are in power so that they can fulfil their selfish motives below the name of friendship. They stay with friends till the time their selfish requirements are achieved. Dishonest friends leave people as soon as their power gets vanished. You can find these types of self-seeking friends all around the world who are quite hurtful than enemies.

Finding a true friendship is very difficult. A true friend helps the other friend who is in need. It does not matter to him that his friend is right or wrong but he will always support his friend at the time of his difficulty.

Carefulness in the Selection of Friendship:

You must be very careful while choosing friends. You should nurture your friendship with that person who does not leave you in your bad times easily. Once you get emotionally attached to the wrong person you cannot finish your friendship so soon. True friendship continues till the time of your last breaths and does not change with the passing time.

Friendship with a bad person also affects your own thoughts and habits. Therefore, a bad person should not be chosen in any type of circumstances. We must do friendship with full attention and carefulness.

Best Qualities of Good Friendship:

Good friendship provides people an enormous love to each other.

The below are the important qualities of good friendship:

1. Good friendship is always faithful, honest, and truthful.

2. People pay attention and take note of others thoughts in good friendship.

3. Persons quickly forget and let off the mistakes of the other friend. In fact, they accept their friend in the way they are actually.

4. You are not judged on the basis of your success, money or power in it.

5. Friends do not feel shy to provide us with valuable opinions for our welfare.

6. People always share their joyful times with their good friends and also stay ready to help their friends in the time of need.

7. True friends also support others in their professional as well as personal life. They encourage their friends in the area of their interest.

Friendship is established over the sacrifice, love, faith, and concern of mutual benefit. True Friendship is a support and a blessing for everybody. All those males and females who have true and genuine friends are very lucky really.

Friendship can simply be defined as a form of mutual relationship or understanding between two people or more who interact and are attached to one another in a manner that is friendly. A friendship is a serious relationship of devotion between two or more people where people involved have a true and sincere feeling of affection, care and love towards each other devoid of any misunderstanding and without demands.

Primarily friendship happens between people that have the same sentiments, feelings and tastes. It is believed that there is no limit or criteria for friendship. All of the different creed, religion, caste, position, sex and age do not matter when it comes to friendship even though friendships can sometimes be damaged by economic disparity and other forms of differentiation. From all of these, it can be concluded that real and true friendship is very possible between people that have a uniform status and are like-minded.

A lot of friends we have in the world today only remain together in times of prosperity and absence of problems but only the faithful, sincere and true friends remain all through the troubles, times of hardships and our bad times. We only discover who our bad and good friends are in the times where we don’t have things going our way.

Most people want to be friends with people with money and we can’t really know if our friends are true when we have money and do not need their help, we only discover our true friends when we need their help in terms of money or any other form of support. A lot of friendships have been jeopardised because of money and the absence or presence of it.

Sometimes, we might face difficulty or crises in our friendships because of self-respect and ego. Friendships can be affected by us or others and we need to try to strike a balance in our friendships. For our friendship to prosper and be true, we need satisfaction, proper understanding and a trustworthy nature. As true friends, we should never exploit our friends but instead do our utmost best to motivate and support them in doing and attaining the very best things in life.

The true meaning of friendship is sometimes lost because of encounters with fake friends who have used and exploited us for their own personal benefits. People like this tend to end the friendship once they get what they want or stab their supposed friends in the back just to get what they think is best for them. Friendship is a very good thing that can help meet our need for companionship and other emotional needs.

In the world we live in today, it is extremely difficult to come across good and loyal friends and this daunting task isn’t made any easier by the lie and deceit of a lot of people in this generation. So, when one finds a very good and loyal important, it is like finding gold and one should do everything to keep friends like that.

The pursuit of true friendship Is not limited to humans, we can as well find good friends in animals; for example, it is a popular belief that dogs make the best friends. It is very important to have good friends as they help us in times and situations where we are down and facing difficulties. Our true friends always do their best to save us when we are in danger and also provide us with timely and good advice. True friends are priceless assets in our lives, they share our pains and sorrow, help provide relief to us in terrible situations and do their best to make us happy.

Friends can both be the good or the bad types. Good friends help push us on the right path in life while on the other hand, bad friends don’t care about us but only care about themselves and can lead us into the wrong path; because of this, we have to be absolutely careful when choosing our friends in this life.

Bad friends can ruin our lives completely so we have to be weary of them and do our best to avoid bag friends totally. We need friends in our life that will be there for us at every point in time and will share all of our feeling with us, both the good and bad. We need friends we can talk to anytime we are feeling lonely, friends that will make us laugh and smile anytime we are feeling sad.

What is friendship? It is the purest form of relationship between two individual with no hidden agenda. As per the dictionary, it is the mutual affection between people. But, is it just a mutual affection? Not always, as in the case of best friends, it is far beyond that. Great friends share each other’s feelings or notions which bring a feeling of prosperity and mental fulfillment.

A friend is a person whom one can know deeply, as and trust for eternity. Rather than having some likeness in the idea of two people associated with the friendship, they have some extraordinary qualities yet they want to be with each other without changing their uniqueness. By and large, friends spur each other without censuring, however at times great friends scrutinize do affect you in a positive manner.

Importance of Friendship:

It is very important to have a friend in life. Each friend is vital and their significance in known to us when certain circumstances emerge which must be supported by our friends. One can never feel lonely in this world on the off chance that he or she is embraced by true friends. Then again, depression wins in the lives of the individuals who don’t have friends regardless of billions of individuals present on the planet. Friends are particularly vital amid times of emergency and hardships. On the off chance that you wind up experiencing a hard time, having a friend to help you through can make the change simpler.

Having friends you can depend on can help your confidence. Then again, an absence of friends can make you feel lonely and without help, which makes you powerless for different issues, for example, sadness and drug abuse. Having no less than one individual you can depend on will formulate your confidence.

Choosing Your Friends Wisely:

Not all friends can instill the positivity in your life. There can be negative effects as well. It is very important to choose your friends with utmost wisdom. Picking the right friend is somewhat troublesome task however it is extremely important. In the event that for instance a couple of our dear friends are engaged with negative behaviour patterns, for example, smoking, drinking and taking drugs, at some point or another we will be attracted to their bad habits as well. This is the reason behind why it is appropriate to settle on an appropriate decision with regards to making friends.

Genuine friendship is truly a gift delighted in by a couple. The individuals who have it ought to express gratitude toward God for having genuine pearls in their lives and the individuals who don’t have a couple of good friends ought to always take a stab at better approaches to anchor great friends. No organization is superior to having a friend close by in the midst of need. You will stay cheerful in your one-room flat on the off chance that you are surrounded by your friends; then again, you can’t discover satisfaction even in your estate in the event that you are far away from others.

Types of Friends:

There is variety everywhere, so why not in friends. We can see different types of friends during our journey of life. For instance, your best friend at school is someone with whom you just get along the most. That friend, especially in the case of girls, may just get annoyed even if you talk to another of your friend more than her. Such is the childish nature of such friendships that at times it is difficult for others to identify whether you are best friends or competitors.

Then there is another category of your siblings. No matter how much you deny, but your siblings or your elder brother and sisters are those friends of yours who stay on with you for your entire life. You have a different set of friendship with them as you find yourself fighting with them most of the times. However, in times of need, you shall see that they are first ones standing behind you, supporting you.

There is another category of friends called professional friends. You come across such friends only when you grow up and choose a profession for yourself. These friends are usually from the same organisation and prove to be helpful during your settling years. Some of them tend to stay on with you even when you change companies.

Friendship Examples from History:

History has always taught us a lot. Examples of true friendship are not far behind. We have some famous example from history which makes us realise the true value of friendship. The topmost of them are the Krishna and Sudama friendship. We all must have read or heard as to how after becoming a king when Krishna met Sudama, his childhood friend, he treated him with honour even though Sudama was a poor person. It teaches us the friendship need not be between equals. It has to be between likeminded people. Next example is of Karna and Duryodhana, again from the Mahabharat era.

Despite knowing the fact that the Pandavas were his brothers, Karna went on to fight alongside Duryodhan as he is his best friend and even laid down his life for him. What more example of true friendship can one find? Again from the same era, Krishna and Arjun are also referred to as the best of the friends. Bhagavad Gita is an example of how a true friend can guide you towards positivity in life and make you follow the path of Dharma. Similarly, there are numerous examples from history which teach us the values of true friendship and the need to nourish such for own good.

Whether you accept or deny it, a friend plays an important role in your life. In fact, it is very important to have a friend. However, at the same time, it is extremely important to choose the friends wisely as they are the ones who can build you or destroy you. Nonetheless, a friend’s company is something which one enjoys all through life and friends should be treated as the best treasure a man can have.

Friendship , Relationship

Get FREE Work-at-Home Job Leads Delivered Weekly!

Join more than 50,000 subscribers receiving regular updates! Plus, get a FREE copy of How to Make Money Blogging!

Message from Sophia!

Like this post? Don’t forget to share it!

Here are a few recommended articles for you to read next:

• Essay on My Best Friend
• Essay on My Father
• Which is More Important in Life: Love or Money | Essay
• How to Get Your Ex-Girlfriend or Ex-Boyfriend Back: The Most Exclusive Guide

No comments yet.

Leave a reply click here to cancel reply..

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Billionaires

• Donald Trump
• Warren Buffett
• Email Address
• Free Stock Photos
• Keyword Research Tools
• URL Shortener Tools
• WordPress Theme

Book Summaries

• How To Win Friends
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• The Code of the Extraordinary Mind
• The Luck Factor
• The Millionaire Fastlane
• The ONE Thing
• Think and Grow Rich
• 100 Million Dollar Business
• Business Ideas

Digital Marketing

• Mobile Addiction
• Social Media Addiction
• Computer Addiction
• Drug Addiction
• Internet Addiction
• TV Addiction
• Healthy Habits
• Morning Rituals
• Wake up Early
• Cholesterol
• Reducing Cholesterol
• Fat Loss Diet Plan
• Reducing Hair Fall
• Sleep Apnea
• Weight Loss

Internet Marketing

• Email Marketing

Law of Attraction

• Subconscious Mind
• Vision Board
• Visualization

Law of Vibration

• Professional Life

Motivational Speakers

• Bob Proctor
• Robert Kiyosaki
• Vivek Bindra
• Inner Peace

Productivity

• Not To-do List
• Project Management Software
• Negative Energies

Relationship

• Getting Back Your Ex

Self-help 21 and 14 Days Course

Self-improvement.

• Body Language
• Complainers
• Emotional Intelligence
• Personality

Social Media

• Project Management
• Anik Singal
• Baba Ramdev
• Dwayne Johnson
• Jackie Chan
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Narendra Modi
• Nikola Tesla
• Sachin Tendulkar
• Sandeep Maheshwari
• Shaqir Hussyin

Website Development

Wisdom post, worlds most.

• Expensive Cars

Our Portals: Gulf Canada USA Italy Gulf UK

Privacy Overview

• Table of Contents
• Random Entry
• Chronological
• Editorial Information
• About the SEP
• Editorial Board
• How to Cite the SEP
• Special Characters
• Advanced Tools
• Support the SEP
• PDFs for SEP Friends
• Make a Donation
• SEPIA for Libraries
• Entry Contents

Bibliography

Academic tools.

• Friends PDF Preview
• Author and Citation Info
• Back to Top

Friendship, as understood here, is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other’s sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy. As such, friendship is undoubtedly central to our lives, in part because the special concern we have for our friends must have a place within a broader set of concerns, including moral concerns, and in part because our friends can help shape who we are as persons. Given this centrality, important questions arise concerning the justification of friendship and, in this context, whether it is permissible to “trade up” when someone new comes along, as well as concerning the possibility of reconciling the demands of friendship with the demands of morality in cases in which the two seem to conflict.

1.1 Mutual Caring

1.2 intimacy, 1.3 shared activity, 2.1 individual value, 2.2 social value, 3. friendship and moral theory, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the nature of friendship.

Friendship essentially involves a distinctive kind of concern for your friend, a concern which might reasonably be understood as a kind of love. Nonetheless, it is important not to misconstrue the sort of love friendship involves. Ancient Greek had three words that might reasonably be translated as love: agape , eros , and philia . Of these, agape through the Christian tradition has come to mean a kind of love that does not respond to the antecedent value of its object but instead is thought to create value in its object, as with the sort of love God has for us persons as well as, by extension, our love for God and our love for humankind in general. By contrast, eros and philia have come to be generally understood as responsive to the merits of their objects—to the beloved’s properties, such as his goodness or beauty. The difference is that eros is a kind of passionate desire for an object, typically sexual in nature, whereas ‘ philia ’ originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feeling towards not just one’s friends but also possibly towards family members, business partners, and one’s country at large (Liddell et al., 1940; Cooper, 1977a). Given this classification of kinds of love, philia seems to be that which is most clearly relevant to friendship (though just what philia amounts to needs to be clarified in more detail).

For this reason, love and friendship often get lumped together as a single topic; nonetheless, there are significant differences between them. As understood here, love is an evaluative attitude directed at particular persons as such, an attitude which we might take towards someone whether or not that love is reciprocated and whether or not we have an established relationship with her. [ 1 ] Friendship, by contrast, is essentially a kind of relationship grounded in a particular kind of special concern each has for the other as the person she is; and whereas we must make conceptual room for the idea of unrequited love, unrequited friendship is senseless. Consequently, accounts of friendship tend to understand it not merely as a case of reciprocal love of some form (together with mutual acknowledgment of this love), but as essentially involving significant interactions between the friends—as being in this sense a certain kind of relationship.

Nonetheless, questions can be raised about precisely how to distinguish romantic relationships, grounded in eros , from relationships of friendship, grounded in philia , insofar as each involves significant interactions between the involved parties that stem from a kind of reciprocal love that is responsive to merit. Clearly the two differ insofar as romantic love normally has a kind of sexual involvement that friendship lacks; yet, as Thomas (1989) asks, is that enough to explain the real differences between them? Badhwar (2003, 65–66) seems to think so, claiming that the sexual involvement enters into romantic love in part through a passion and yearning for physical union, whereas friendship involves instead a desire for a more psychological identification. Yet it is not clear exactly how to understand this: precisely what kind of “psychological identification” or intimacy is characteristic of friendship? (For further discussion, see Section 1.2 .)

In philosophical discussions of friendship, it is common to follow Aristotle ( Nicomachean Ethics , Book VIII) in distinguishing three kinds of friendship: friendships of pleasure, of utility, and of virtue. Although it is a bit unclear how to understand these distinctions, the basic idea seems to be that pleasure, utility, and virtue are the reasons we have in these various kinds of relationships for loving our friend. That is, I may love my friend because of the pleasure I get out of her, or because of the ways in which she is useful to me, or because I find her to have a virtuous character. Given the involvement of love in each case, all three kinds of friendship seem to involve a concern for your friend for his sake and not for your own.

There is an apparent tension here between the idea that friendship essentially involves being concerned for your friend for his sake and the idea of pleasure and utility friendships: how can you be concerned for him for his sake if you do that only because of the pleasure or utility you get out of it? If you benefit your friend because, ultimately, of the benefits you receive, it would seem that you do not properly love your friend for his sake, and so your relationship is not fully one of friendship after all. So it looks like pleasure and utility friendships are at best deficient modes of friendship; by contrast, virtue friendships, because they are motivated by the excellences of your friend’s character, are genuine, non-deficient friendships. For this reason, most contemporary accounts, by focusing their attention on the non-deficient forms of friendship, ignore pleasure and utility friendships. [ 2 ]

As mentioned in the first paragraph of this section, philia seems to be the kind of concern for other persons that is most relevant to friendship, and the word, ‘ philia ,’ sometimes gets translated as friendship; yet philia is in some ways importantly different from what we ordinarily think of as friendship. Thus , ‘ philia ’ extends not just to friends but also to family members, business associates, and one’s country at large. Contemporary accounts of friendship differ on whether family members, in particular one’s children before they become adults, can be friends. Most philosophers think not, understanding friendship to be essentially a relationship among equals; yet some philosophers (such as Friedman 1989; Rorty 1986/1993; Badhwar 1987) explicitly intend their accounts of friendship to include parent-child relationships, perhaps through the influence of the historical notion of philia . Nonetheless, there do seem to be significant differences between, on the one hand, parental love and the relationships it generates and, on the other hand, the love of one’s friends and the relationships it generates; the focus here will be on friendship more narrowly construed.

In philosophical accounts of friendship, several themes recur consistently, although various accounts differ in precisely how they spell these out. These themes are: mutual caring (or love), intimacy, and shared activity; these will be considered in turn.

A necessary condition of friendship, according to just about every view (Telfer 1970–71; Annas 1988, 1977; Annis 1987; Badhwar 1987; Millgram 1987; Sherman 1987; Thomas 1987, 1989, 1993; Friedman 1993, 1989; Whiting 1991; Hoffman 1997; Cocking & Kennett 1998; and White 1999a, 1999b, 2001) is that the friends each care about the other, and do so for her sake; in effect, this is to say that the friends must each love the other. Although many accounts of friendship do not analyze such mutual caring any further, among those that do there is considerable variability as to how we should understand the kind of caring involved in friendship. Nonetheless, there is widespread agreement that caring about someone for his sake involves both sympathy and action on the friend’s behalf. That is, friends must be moved by what happens to their friends to feel the appropriate emotions: joy in their friends’ successes, frustration and disappointment in their friends’ failures (as opposed to disappointment in the friends themselves), etc. Moreover, in part as an expression of their caring for each other, friends must normally be disposed to promote the other’s good for her sake and not out of any ulterior motive. (However, see Velleman 1999 for a dissenting view.)

To care about something is generally to find it worthwhile or valuable in some way; caring about one’s friend is no exception. A central difference among the various accounts of mutual caring is the way in which these accounts understand the kind of evaluation implicit therein. Most accounts understand that evaluation to be a matter of appraisal: we care about our friends at least in part because of the good qualities of their characters that we discover them to have (Annas 1977; Sherman 1987; Whiting 1991); this is in line with the understanding of love as philia or eros given in the first paragraph of Section 1 above. For this reason, many authors argue that to be friends with bad people reveals a potentially morally condemnable evaluative defect (see, e.g., Isserow 2018). Other accounts, however, understand caring as in part a matter of bestowing value on your beloved: in caring about a friend, we thereby project a kind of intrinsic value onto him; this is in line with the understanding of love as agape given above.

Friedman (1989, 6) argues for bestowal, saying that if we were to base our friendship on positive appraisals of our friend’s excellences, “to that extent our commitment to that person is subordinate to our commitment to the relevant [evaluative] standards and is not intrinsically a commitment to that person.” However, this is too quick, for to appeal to an appraisal of the good qualities of your friend’s character in order to justify your friendship is not on its own to subordinate your friendship to that appraisal. Rather, through the friendship, and through changes in your friend over time, you may come to change your evaluative outlook, thereby in effect subordinating your commitment to certain values to your commitment to your friend. Of course, within friendship the influence need not go only one direction: friends influence each other’s conceptions of value and how to live. Indeed, that friends have a reciprocal effect on each other is a part of the concern for equality many find essential to friendship, and it is central to the discussion of intimacy in Section 1.2 .

(For more on the notion of caring about another for her sake and the variety of philosophical accounts of it, see the entry on love .)

The relationship of friendship differs from other interpersonal relationships, even those characterized by mutual caring, such as relationships among colleagues: friendships are, intuitively, “deeper,” more intimate relationships. The question facing any philosophical account is how that characteristic intimacy of friendship is to be understood.

On this point, there is considerable variation in the literature—so much that it raises the question whether differing accounts aim at elucidating the same object. For it seems as though when the analysis of intimacy is relatively weak, the aim is to elucidate what might be called “acquaintance friendships”; as the analysis of intimacy gets stronger, the aim seems to tend towards closer friendships and even to a kind of ideal of maximally close friendship. It might be asked whether one or another of these types of friendship ought to take priority in the analysis, such that, for example, cases of close friendship can be understood to be an enhanced version of acquaintance friendship, or whether acquaintance friendship should be understood as being deficient in various ways relative to ideal friendship. Nonetheless, in what follows, views will be presented roughly in order from weaker to stronger accounts of intimacy.

To begin, Thomas (1987; 1989; 1993; 2013) claims that we should understand what is here called the intimacy of friendship in terms of mutual self-disclosure: I tell my friends things about myself that I would not dream of telling others, and I expect them to make me privy to intimate details of their lives. The point of such mutual self-disclosure, Thomas argues, is to create the “bond of trust” essential to friendship, for through such self-disclosure we simultaneously make ourselves vulnerable to each other and acknowledge the goodwill the other has for us. Such a bond of trust is what institutes the kind of intimacy characteristic of friendship. (Similar ideas can be found in Annis 1987.)

Cocking & Kennett (1998) caricature this as “the secrets view,” arguing:

It is not the sharing of private information nor even of very personal information, as such, that contributes to the bonds of trust and intimacy between companion friends. At best it is the sharing of what friends care about that is relevant here. [518]

Their point is that the secrets view underestimates the kind of trust at issue in friendship, conceiving of it largely as a matter of discretion. Given the way friendship essentially involves each caring about the other’s good for the other’s sake and so acting on behalf of the other’s good, entering into and sustaining a relationship of friendship will normally involve considerable trust in your friend’s goodwill towards you generally, and not just concerning your secrets. Moreover, friendship will normally involve trust in your friend’s judgment concerning what is in your best interests, for when your friend sees you harming yourself, she ought, other things being equal, to intervene, and through the friendship you can come to rely on her to do so. (See also Alfano, 2016, who emphasizes not just trust but trustworthiness to make similar points.)

Such enhanced trust can lead to “shared interests or enthusiasms or views … [or] a similar style of mind or way of thinking which makes for a high degree of empathy” (Telfer 1970–71, 227). Telfer finds such shared interests central to the “sense of a bond” friends have, an idea similar to the “solidarity”—the sharing of values and a sense of what’s important—that White (2001) advocates as central to friendship. For trusting my friend’s assessments of my good in this way seemingly involves trusting not only that she understands who I am and that I find certain things valuable and important in life but also and centrally that she understands the value of these things that are so meaningful to me. That in turn seems to be grounded in the empathy we have for each other—the shared sense of what’s important. So Telfer and White, in appealing to such shared sense of value, are offering a somewhat richer sense of the sort of intimacy essential to friendship than Thomas and Annis.

An important question to ask, however, is what precisely is meant by the “sharing” of a sense of value. Once again there are weaker and stronger versions. On the weak side, a sense of value is shared in the sense that a coincidence of interests and values is a necessary condition of developing and sustaining a friendship; when that happy coincidence dissipates, so too does the friendship. It is possible to read Annas’s summary of Aristotle’s view of friendship this way (1988, 1):

A friend, then, is one who (1) wishes and does good (or apparently good) things to a friend, for the friend’s sake, (2) wishes the friend to exist and live, for his own sake, (3) spends time with his friend, (4) makes the same choices as his friend and (5) finds the same things pleasant and painful as his friend.

(4) and (5) are the important claims for present purposes: making the same choices as your friend, if done consistently, depends on having a similar outlook on what reasons there are so to choose, and this point is reinforced in (5) given Aristotle’s understanding of pleasure and pain as evaluative and so as revealing what is (apparently) good and bad. The message might be that merely having coincidence in evaluative outlook is enough to satisfy (4) and (5).

Of course, Aristotle (and Annas) would reject this reading: friends do not merely have such similarities antecedent to their friendship as a necessary condition of friendship. Rather, friends can influence and shape each other’s evaluative outlook, so that the sharing of a sense of value is reinforced through the dynamics of their relationship. One way to make sense of this is through the Aristotelian idea that friends function as a kind of mirror of each other: insofar as friendship rests on similarity of character, and insofar as I can have only imperfect direct knowledge about my own character, I can best come to know myself—both the strengths and weaknesses of my character—by knowing a friend who reflects my qualities of character. Minor differences between friends, as when my friend on occasion makes a choice I would not have made, can lead me to reflect on whether this difference reveals a flaw in my own character that might need to be fixed, thereby reinforcing the similarity of my and my friend’s evaluative outlooks. On this reading of the mirroring view, my friend plays an entirely passive role: just by being himself, he enables me to come to understand my own character better (cf. Badhwar 2003). [ 3 ]

Cocking & Kennett (1998) argue against such a mirroring view in two ways. First, they claim that this view places too much emphasis on similarity as motivating and sustaining the friendship. Friends can be very different from each other, and although within a friendship there is a tendency for the friends to become more and more alike, this should be understood as an effect of friendship, not something constitutive of it. Second, they argue that the appeal to the friend’s role as a mirror to explain the increasing similarity involves assigning too much passivity to the friend. Our friends, they argue, play a more active role in shaping us, and the mirroring view fails to acknowledge this. (Cocking & Kennett’s views will be discussed further below. Lynch (2005) provides further criticisms of the mirroring view, arguing that the differences between friends can be central and important to their friendship.)

In an interesting twist on standard accounts of the sense in which (according to Aristotle, at least) a friend is a mirror, Millgram (1987) claims that in mirroring my friend I am causally responsible for my friend coming to have and sustain the virtues he has. Consequently, I am in a sense my friend’s “procreator,” and I therefore find myself actualized in my friend. For this reason, Millgram claims, I come to love my friend in the same way I love myself, and this explains (a) Aristotle’s otherwise puzzling claim that a friend is “another self,” (b) why it is that friends are not fungible, given my role as procreator only of this particular person, and (c) why friendships of pleasure and utility, which do not involve such procreation, fail to be genuine friendships. (For more on the problem of fungibility, see Section 2.1 .) However, in offering this account, Millgram may seem to confound my being causally necessary for my friend’s virtues with my being responsible for those virtues—to confound my passive role as a mirror with that of a “procreator,” a seemingly active role. Millgram’s understanding of mirroring does not, therefore, escape Cocking & Kennett’s criticism of mirroring views as assigning too much passivity to the friend as mirror.

Friedman (1989) offers another way to make sense of the influence my friend has on my sense of value by appealing to the notion of bestowal. According to Friedman, the intimacy of friendship takes the form of a commitment friends have to each other as unique persons, a commitment in which the

friend’s successes become occasions for joy; her judgments may provoke reflection or even deference; her behavior may encourage emulation; and the causes which she champions may inspire devotion …. One’s behavior toward the friend takes its appropriateness, at least in part, from her goals and aspirations, her needs, her character—all of which one feels prima facie invited to acknowledge as worthwhile just because they are hers. [4]

As noted in the 3rd paragraph of Section 1.1 , Friedman thinks my commitment to my friend cannot be grounded in appraisals of her, and so my acknowledgment of the worth of her goals, etc., is a matter of my bestowing value on these: her ends become valuable to me, and so suitable for motivating my actions, “just because they are hers.” That is, such a commitment involves taking my friend seriously, where this means something like finding her values, interests, reasons, etc. provide me with pro tanto reasons for me to value and think similarly. [ 4 ] In this way, the dynamics of the friendship relation involves friends mutually influencing each other’s sense of value, which thereby comes to be shared in a way that underwrites significant intimacy.

In part, Friedman’s point is that sharing an evaluative perspective in the way that constitutes the intimacy of friendship involves coming to adopt her values as parts of my own sense of value. Whiting (1991) argues that such an approach fails properly to make sense of the idea that I love my friend for her sake. For to require that my friend’s values be my own is to blur the distinction between valuing these things for her sake and valuing them for my own. Moreover, Whiting (1986) argues, to understand my concern for her for her sake in terms of my concern for things for my sake raises the question of how to understand this latter concern. However, Whiting thinks the latter is at least as unclear as the former, as is revealed when we think about the long-term and my connection and responsibility to my “future selves.” The solution, she claims, is to understand the value of my ends (or yours) to be independent of the fact that they are mine (or yours): these ends are intrinsically valuable, and that’s why I should care about them, no matter whose ends they are. Consequently, the reason I have to care for myself, including my future selves, for my sake is the same as the reason I have to care about my friend for her sake: because I recognize the intrinsic value of the (excellent) character she or I have (Whiting 1991, 10; for a similar view, see Keller 2000). Whiting therefore advocates what she calls an “impersonal” conception of friendship: There are potentially many people exhibiting (what I would consider to be) excellences of character, and these are my impersonal friends insofar as they are all “equally worthy of my concern”; what explains but does not justify my “differential and apparently personal concern for only some … [is] largely a function of historical and psychological accident” (1991, 23).

It should be clear that Whiting does not merely claim that friends share values only in that these values happen to coincide; if that were the case, her conception of friendship would be vulnerable to the charge that the friends really are not concerned for each other but merely for the intrinsically valuable properties that each exemplifies. Rather, Whiting thinks that part of what makes my concern for my friend be for her sake is my being committed to remind her of what’s really valuable in life and to foster within her a commitment to these values so as to prevent her from going astray. Such a commitment on my part is clearly a commitment to her, and a relationship characterized by such a commitment on both sides is one that consistently and non-accidentally reinforces the sharing of these values.

Brink (1999) criticizes Whiting’s account of friendship as too impersonal because it fails to understand the relationship of friendship itself to be intrinsically valuable. (For similar criticisms, see Jeske 1997.) In part, the complaint is the same as that which Friedman (1989) offered against any conception of friendship that bases that friendship on appraisals of the friend’s properties (cf. the 3rd paragraph of Section 1.1 above): such a conception of friendship subordinates our concern for the friend to our concern for the values, thereby neglecting what makes friendship a distinctively personal relationship. Given Whiting’s understanding of the sense in which friends share values in terms of their appeal to the intrinsic and impersonal worth of those values, it seems that she cannot make much of the rebuttal to Friedman offered above: that I can subordinate my concern for certain values to my concern for my friend, thereby changing my values in part out of concern for my friend. Nonetheless, Brink’s criticism goes deeper:

Unless our account of love and friendship attaches intrinsic significance to the historical relationship between friends, it seems unable to justify concern for the friend qua friend. [1999, 270]

It is only in terms of the significance of the historical relationship, Brink argues, that we can make sense of the reasons for friendship and for the concern and activity friendship demands as being agent-relative (and so in this way personal) rather than agent-neutral (or impersonal, as for Whiting). [ 5 ]

Cocking & Kennett (1998), in what might be a development of Rorty (1986/1993), offer an account of close friendship in part in terms of the friends playing a more active role in transforming each other’s evaluative outlook: in friendship, they claim, we are “receptive” to having our friends “direct” and “interpret” us and thereby change our interests. To be directed by your friend is to allow her interests, values, etc. to shape your own; thus, your friend may suggest that you go to the opera together, and you may agree to go, even though you have no antecedent interest in the opera. Through his interest, enthusiasm, and suggestion (“Didn’t you just love the concluding duet of Act III?”), you may be moved directly by him to acquire an interest in opera only because he’s your friend. To be interpreted by your friend is to allow your understanding of yourself, in particular of your strengths and weaknesses, to be shaped by your friend’s interpretations of you. Thus, your friend may admire your tenacity (a trait you did not realize you had), or be amused by your excessive concern for fairness, and you may come as a result to develop a new understanding of yourself, and potentially change yourself, in direct response to his interpretation of you. Hence, Cocking & Kennett claim, “the self my friend sees is, at least in part, a product of the friendship” (505). (Nehamas 2010 offers a similar account of the importance of the interpretation of one’s friends in determining who one is, though Nehamas emphasizes in a way that Cocking & Kennett do not that your interpretation of your friend can reveal possible valuable ways to be that you yourself “could never have even imagined beforehand” (287).)

It is a bit unclear what your role is in being thus directed and interpreted by your friend. Is it a matter of merely passively accepting the direction and interpretation? This is suggested by Cocking & Kennett’s understanding of friendship in terms of a  receptivity to being drawn by your friend and by their apparent understanding of this receptivity in dispositional terms. Yet this would seem to be a matter of ceding your autonomy to your friend, and that is surely not what they intend. Rather, it seems, we are at least selective in the ways in which we allow our friends to direct and interpret us, and we can resist other directions and interpretations. However, this raises the question of why we allow any such direction and interpretation. One answer would be because we recognize the independent value of the interests of our friends, or that we recognize the truth of their interpretations of us. But this would not explain the role of friendship in such direction and interpretation, for we might just as easily accept such direction and interpretation from a mentor or possibly even a stranger. This shortcoming might push us to understanding our receptivity to direction and interpretation not in dispositional terms but rather in normative terms: other things being equal, we ought to accept direction and interpretation from our friends precisely because they are our friends. And this might push us to a still stronger conception of intimacy, of the sharing of values, in terms of which we can understand why friendship grounds these norms.

Such a stronger conception of intimacy is provided in Sherman’s interpretation of Aristotle’s account of friends as sharing a life together (Sherman 1987; see also Moore & Frederick 2017, which argues that friends must share a life together partly through the mutual acknowledgment of their shared activity in the form of a joint narrative that interprets these activities as meaningful). According to Sherman’s Aristotle, an important component of friendship is that friends identify with each other in the sense that they exhibit a “singleness of mind.” This includes, first, a kind of sympathy, whereby I feel on my friend’s behalf the same emotions he does. Unlike similar accounts, Sherman explicitly includes pride and shame as emotions I sympathetically feel on behalf of my friend—a significant addition because of the role pride and shame have in constituting our sense of ourselves and even our identities (Taylor 1985). In part for this reason, Sherman claims that “through the sense of belonging and attachment” we attain because of such sympathetic pride and shame, “we identify with and share their [our friends’] good” (600). [ 6 ]

Second, and more important, Sherman’s Aristotle understands the singleness of mind that friends have in terms of shared processes of deliberation. Thus, as she summarizes a passage in Aristotle (1170b11–12):

character friends live together, not in the way animals do, by sharing the same pasture, but “by sharing in argument and thought.” [598]

The point is that the friends “share” a conception of values not merely in that there is significant overlap between the values of the one friend and those of the other, and not merely in that this overlap is maintained through the influence that the friends have on each other. Rather, the values are shared in the sense that they are most fundamentally their values, at which they jointly arrive by deliberating together.

[Friends have] the project of a shared conception of eudaimonia [i.e., of how best to live]. Through mutual decisions about specific practical matters, friends begin to express that shared commitment …. Any happiness or disappointment that follows from these actions belongs to both persons, for the decision to so act was joint and the responsibility is thus shared. [598]

The intent of this account, in which what gets shared is, we might say, an identity that the friends have in common, is not to be descriptively accurate of particular friendships; it is rather to provide a kind of ideal that actual friendships at best only approximate. Such a strong notion of sharing is reminiscent of the union view of (primarily erotic) love, according to which love consists in the formation of some significant kind of union, a “we” (see the entry on love , the section on love as union ). Like the union view of love, this account of friendship raises worries about autonomy. Thus, it seems as though Sherman’s Aristotle does away with any clear distinction between the interests and even agency of the two friends, thereby undermining the kind of independence and freedom of self-development that characterizes autonomy. If autonomy is a part of the individual’s good, then Sherman’s Aristotle might be forced to conclude that friendship is to this extent bad; the conclusion might be, therefore, that we ought to reject this strong conception of the intimacy of friendship.

It is unclear from Sherman’s interpretation of Aristotle whether there are principled reasons to limit the extent to which we share our identities with our friends; perhaps an appeal to something like Friedman’s federation model (1998) can help resolve these difficulties. Friedman’s idea is that we should understand romantic love (but the idea could also be applied to friendship) not in terms of the union of the two individuals, in which their identities get subsumed by that union, but rather in terms of the federation of the individuals—the creation of a third entity that presupposes some degree of independence of the individuals that make it up. Even so, much would need to be done to spell out this view satisfactorily. (For more on Friedman’s account, see the entry on love , the section on love as union .)

In each of these accounts of the kind of intimacy and commitment that are characteristic of friendship, we might ask about the conditions under which friendship can properly be dissolved. Thus, insofar as friendship involves some such commitment, we cannot just give up on our friends for no reason at all; nor, it seems, should our commitment be unconditional, binding on us come what may. Understanding more clearly when it is proper to break off a friendship, or allow it to lapse, may well shed light on the kind of commitment and intimacy that is characteristic of friendship; nonetheless, this issue gets scant attention in the literature.

A final common thread in philosophical accounts of friendship is shared activity. The background intuition is this: never to share activity with someone and in this way to interact with him is not to have the kind of relationship with him that could be called friendship, even if you each care for the other for his sake. Rather, friends engage in joint pursuits, in part motivated by the friendship itself. These joint pursuits can include not only such things as making something together, playing together, and talking together, but also pursuits that essentially involve shared experiences, such as going to the opera together. Yet for these pursuits to be properly shared in the relevant sense of “share,” they cannot involve activities motivated simply by self interest: by, for example, the thought that I’ll help you build your fence today if you later help me paint my house. Rather, the activity must be pursued in part for the purpose of doing it together with my friend, and this is the point of saying that the shared activity must be motivated, at least in part, by the friendship itself.

This raises the following questions: in what sense can such activity be said to be “shared,” and what is it about friendship that makes shared activity so central to it? The common answer to this second question (which helps pin down an answer to the first) is that shared activity is important because friends normally have shared interests as a part of the intimacy that is characteristic of friendship as such, and the “shared” pursuit of such shared interests is therefore an important part of friendship. Consequently, the account of shared activity within a particular theory ought to depend at least in part on that theory’s understanding of the kind of intimacy relevant to friendship. And this generally seems to be the case: for example, Thomas (1987, 1989, 1993, 2013), who argues for a weak conception of intimacy in terms of mutual self-disclosure, has little place for shared activity in his account of friendship, whereas Sherman (1987), who argues for a strong conception of intimacy in terms of shared values, deliberation, and thought, provides within friendship a central place not just to isolated shared activities but, more significantly, to a shared life.

Nonetheless, within the literature on friendship the notion of shared or joint activity is largely taken for granted: not much thought has been given to articulating clearly the sense in which friends share their activity. This is surprising and unfortunate, especially insofar as the understanding of the sense in which such activities are “shared” is closely related to the understanding of intimacy that is so central to any account of friendship; indeed, a clear account of the sort of shared activity characteristic of friendship may in turn shed light on the sort of intimacy it involves. This means in part that a particular theory of friendship might be criticized in terms of the way in which its account of the intimacy of friendship yields a poor account of the sense in which activity is shared. For example, one might think that we must distinguish between activity we engage in together in part out of my concern for someone I love, and activity we share insofar as we engage in it at least partly for the sake of sharing it; only the latter, it might be argued, is the sort of shared activity constitutive of the relationship of friendship as opposed to that constitutive merely of my concern for him (see Nozick 1989). Consequently, according to this line of thought, any account of the intimacy of friendship that fails to understand the sharing of interests in such a way as to make sense of this distinction ought to be rejected.

Helm (2008) develops an account of shared activity and shared valuing at least partly with an eye to understanding friendship. He argues that the sense in which friends share activity is not the sort of shared intention and plural subjecthood discussed in literature on shared intention within social philosophy (on which, see Tuomela 1995, 2007; Gilbert 1996, 2000, 2006; Searle 1990; and Bratman 1999), for such sharing of intentions does not involve the requisite intimacy of friendship. Rather, the intimacy of friendship should be understood partly in terms of the friends forming a “plural agent”: a group of people who have joint cares—a joint evaluative perspective—which he analyzes primarily in terms of a pattern of interpersonally connected emotions, desires, judgments, and (shared) actions. Friendships emerge, Helm claims, when the friends form a plural agent that cares positively about their relationship, and the variety of kinds of friendships there can be, including friendships of pleasure, utility, and virtue, are to be understood in terms of the particular way in which they jointly understand their relationship to be something they care about—as tennis buddies or as life partners, for example.

2. Value and Justification of Friendship

Friendship clearly plays an important role in our lives; to a large extent, the various accounts of friendship aim at identifying and clarifying that role. In this context, it is important to understand not only why friendship can be valuable, but also what justifies particular friendships.

One way to construe the question of the value of friendship is in terms of the individual considering whether to be (or continue to be) engaged in a friendship: why should I invest considerable time, energy, and resources in a friend rather than in myself? What makes friendship worthwhile for me, and so how ought I to evaluate whether particular friendships I have are good friendships or not?

One sort of answer is that friendship is instrumentally good. Thus, Telfer (1970–71) claims that friendship is “ life enhancing ” in that it makes us “feel more alive”—it enhances our activities by intensifying our absorption in them and hence the pleasure we get out of them (239–40). Moreover, she claims, friendship is pleasant in itself as well as useful to the friends. Annis (1987) adds that it helps promote self-esteem, which is good both instrumentally and for its own sake.

Yet friendship is not merely instrumentally valuable, as is hinted at by Annis’ claim that “our lives would be significantly less full given the universal demise of friendship” (1987, 351). Cooper (1977b), interpreting Aristotle, provides two arguments for why this might be so. First, Cooper’s Aristotle claims, living well requires that one know the goodness of one’s own life; however, given the perpetual possibility of self-deception, one is able accurately to evaluate one’s own life only through friendship, in which one’s friend acts as a kind of mirror of one’s self. Hence, a flourishing life is possible only through the epistemic access friendship provides. Second, Cooper’s Aristotle claims that the sort of shared activity characteristic of friendship is essential to one’s being able to engage in the sort of activities characteristic of living well “continuously” and “with pleasure and interest” (310). Such activities include moral and intellectual activities, activities in which it is often difficult to sustain interest without being tempted to act otherwise. Friendship, and the shared values and shared activities it essentially involves, is needed to reinforce our intellectual and practical understanding of such activities as worthwhile in spite of their difficulty and the ever present possibility that our interest in pursuing them will flag. Consequently, Cooper concludes, the shared activity of friendship is partly constitutive of human flourishing. Similarly, Biss (2019) argues along Kantian lines that friendship and the sort of trust friendship involves, are a central and necessary part of the pursuit of moral self-perfection.

So far these are attempts to understand the value of friendship to the individual in terms of the way friendship contributes, instrumentally or constitutively, to something else that is valuable to the individual. Yet one might also think that friendship is valuable for its own sake. Schoeman (1985), partly in response to the individualism of other accounts of the value of friendship, claims that in friendship the friends “become a unique community with a being and value of its own” (280): the intimacy of friendship results in “a way of being and acting in virtue of being united with another” (281). Although this claim has intuitive appeal, Schoeman does not clearly explain what the value of that “unique community” is or why it should have that value. Indeed, we ought to expect that fleshing out this claim would involve a substantive proposal concerning the nature of that community and how it can have a separate (federated?—cf. Friedman 1998) existence and value. Once again, the literature on shared intention and plural subjecthood is relevant here; see, for example, Gilbert 1989, 1996, 2000; Tuomela 1984, 1995; Searle 1990; and Bratman 1999.

A question closely related to this question of the value of friendship is that of what justifies my being friends with this person rather than with someone else or no one at all. To a certain extent, answers to the question of the value of friendship might seem to provide answers to the question of the justification of friendship. After all, if the value of friendship in general lies in the way it contributes (either instrumentally or constitutively) to a flourishing life for me, then it might seem that I can justify particular friendships in light of the extent to which they contribute to my flourishing. Nonetheless, this seems unacceptable because it suggests—what is surely false—that friends are fungible . (To be fungible is to be replaceable by a relevantly similar object without any loss of value.) That is, if my friend has certain properties (including, perhaps, relational properties) in virtue of which I am justified in having her as my friend (because it is in virtue of those properties that she contributes to my flourishing), then on this view I would be equally justified in being friends with anyone else having relevantly similar properties, and so I would have no reason not to replace my current friend with someone else of this sort. Indeed, it might even be that I ought to “trade up” when someone other than my current friend exhibits the relevant friendship-justifying properties to a greater degree than my friend does. This is surely objectionable as an understanding of friendship.

In solving this problem of fungibility, philosophers have typically focused on features of the historical relationship of friendship (cf. Brink 1999, quoted above). One approach might be found in Sherman’s 1987 union account of friendship discussed above (this type of view might be suggested by the account of the value of friendship in Schoeman 1985). If my friend and I form a kind of union in virtue of our having a shared conception of how to live that is forged and maintained through a particular history of interaction and sharing of our lives, and if my sense of my values and identity therefore depends on these being most fundamentally our values and identity, then it is simply not possible to substitute another person for my friend without loss. For this other person could not possibly share the relevant properties of my friend, namely her historical relationship with me. However, the price of this solution to the problem of fungibility, as it arises both for friendship and for love, is the worry about autonomy raised towards the end of Section 1.2 above.

An alternative solution is to understand these historical, relational properties of my friend to be more directly relevant to the justification of our friendship. Thus, Whiting (1991) distinguishes the reasons we have for initiating a friendship (which are, she thinks, impersonal in a way that allows for fungibility) from the reasons we have for sustaining a friendship; the latter, she suggests, are to be found in the history of concern we have for each other. However, it is unclear how the historical-relational properties can provide any additional justification for friendship beyond that provided by thinking about the value of friendship in general, which does not solve the fungibility problem. For the mere fact that this is my friend does not seem to justify my continued friendship: when we imagine that my friend is going through a rough time so that he loses those virtues justifying my initial friendship with him, why shouldn’t I just dump him and strike up a new friendship with someone who has those virtues? It is not clear how the appeal to historical properties of my friend or our friendship can provide an answer.

In part the trouble here arises from tacit preconceptions concerning the nature of justification. If we attempt to justify continued friendship in terms of the friend’s being this particular person, with a particular historical relationship to me, then it seems like we are appealing to merely idiosyncratic and subjective properties, which might explain but cannot justify that friendship. This seems to imply that justification in general requires the appeal to the friend’s being a type of person, having general, objective properties that others might share; this leads to the problem of fungibility. Solving the problem, it might therefore seem, requires somehow overcoming this preconception concerning justification—a task which no one has attempted in the literature on friendship.

(For further discussion of this problem of fungibility as it arises in the context of love, as well as discussion of a related problem concerning whether the object (rather than the grounds) of love is a particular person or a type of person, see Section 6 of the entry on love .)

Another way to construe the question of the value of friendship is in more social terms: what is the good to society of having its members engaged in relationships of friendship? Telfer (1970–71, 238) answers that friendship promotes the general good “by providing a degree and kind of consideration for others’ welfare which cannot exist outside it.” Blum (1980) concurs, arguing that friendship is an important source of moral excellence precisely because it essentially involves acting for the sake of your friend, a kind of action that can have considerable moral worth. (For similar claims, see Annis 1987.)

Cocking & Kennett (2000) argue against this view that friendly acts per se are morally good, claiming that “I might be a perfectly good friend. I might just not be a perfectly moral one” (287). They support this conclusion, within their account of friendship as involving being directed and interpreted by one’s friend, by claiming that “I am just as likely to be directed by your interest in gambling at the casino as by your interest in ballet” (286). However, Cocking & Kennett seem to be insufficiently sensitive to the idea, which they accept (cf. 284), that friends care about promoting each other’s well-being. For if I am concerned with your well-being and find you to be about to embark on an immoral course of action, I ought not, contrary to what Cocking & Kennett suggest, blindly allow you to draw me into joining you; rather, I ought to try to stop you or at least get you to question whether you are doing the right thing—as a matter of my directing and interpreting you. In this context, Koltonski (2016) argues that one ought to ensure that one’s friend is properly engaging in moral deliberation, but then defer to one’s friend’s judgment about what to do, even when one disagrees with the moral conclusion, for such deference is a matter of properly respecting the friend’s moral agency.

These answers to the social value of friendship seem to apply equally well to love: insofar as love essentially involves both a concern for your beloved for his sake and, consequently, action on his behalf for his sake, love will exhibit the same social value. Friedman (1989), however, argues that friendship itself is socially valuable in a way that love is not. Understanding the intimacy of friendship in terms of the sharing of values, Friedman notes that friendship can involve the mutual support of, in particular, unconventional values, which can be an important stimulus to moral progress within a community. For “our commitments to particular persons are, in practice, necessary counterbalances to our commitments to abstract moral guidelines, and may, at times, take precedence over them” (6). Consequently, the institution of friendship is valuable not just to the individuals but also to the community as a whole. On the other hand, however, we might worry that friendship can have negative consequences for society as a whole. As Thomas (1999) and Lintott (2015) argue, we tend to privilege in our loves and friendships “people like us”, which can give rise to biases in favor of certain social identities like race, class, and sexual orientation that can perpetuate inequalities among these groups, reinforce epistemic injustices, and limit our moral development.

A growing body of research since the mid-1970s questions the relationship between the phenomenon of friendship and particular moral theories. Thus, many (Stocker 1976, 1981; Blum 1980, 1993; Wilcox 1987; Friedman 1989, 1993; Badhwar 1991; Cocking & Oakley 1995) have criticized consequentialist and deontological moral theories on the grounds that they are somehow incompatible with friendship and the kind of reasons and motives that friendship provides. Often, the appeal to friendship is intended to bypass traditional disputes among major types of moral theories (consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics), and so the “friendship critique” may seem especially important and interesting. [ 7 ]

At the root of these questions concerning the relationship between friendship and morality is the idea that friendship involves special duties : duties for specific people that arise out of the relationship of friendship. Thus, it seems that we have obligations to aid and support our friends that go well beyond those we have to help strangers because they are our friends, much like we parents have special duties to aid and support our children because they are our children. Indeed, Annis (1987) suggests, such duties “are constitutive of the relationship” of friendship (352; but see Bernstein (2007) for an argument that friendship does not involve any requirement of partiality). Given this, the question arises as to what the relationship is between such special duties of friendship and other duties, in particular moral duties: can our obligations to our friends sometimes trump our moral duties, or must we always subordinate our personal relationships to morality in order to be properly impartial (as, it might be thought, morality demands)?

One concern in this neighborhood, articulated by Stocker (1976), is that the phenomenon of friendship reveals that consequentialist and deontological moral theories, by offering accounts of what it is right to do irrespective of the motives we have, promote a kind of “ moral schizophrenia ”: a split between our moral reasons on the one hand and our motives on the other. Such moral schizophrenia, Stocker argues, prevents us in general from harmonizing our moral reasons and our motives, and it does so in a way that destroys the very possibility of our having and sustaining friendships with others. Given the manifest value of friendship in our lives, this is clearly a serious problem with these moral theories.

What is it about friendship that generates these problems? One concern arises out of the teleological conception of action , implicit in consequentialism, according to which actions are understood in terms of their ends or purposes. The trouble is, Stocker (1981) argues, the characteristic actions of friendship cannot be understood in this way. To be a friend is at least sometimes to be motivated to act out of a concern for your friend as this individual (cf. Section 1.1 ). Although actions done out of friendship may have ends, what characterizes these as “friendly acts,” as we might call them, is not that they are done for any particular purpose:

If acting out of friendship is composed of purposes, dispositions to have purposes, and the like, where these are purposes properly so-called, and thus not essentially described by the phrase ‘out of friendship’, there seems … no guarantee that the person cares about and likes, has friendship for, the ‘friend’. [Stocker 1981, 756–57]

That is, actions done out of friendship are essentially actions motivated by a special sort of concern—a concern for this particular person—which is in part a matter of having settled habits of response to the friend. This, Stocker concludes, is a kind of motivation for action that a teleological conception of action cannot countenance, resulting in moral schizophrenia. (Jeske (2008) argues for a somewhat different conclusion: that in order to heal this apparent split between impartial moral obligations and the partial obligations of friendship, we must abandon the distinction between moral and nonmoral obligations.)

Stocker (1976) raises another, more general concern for consequentialism and deontology arising out of a conception of friendship. Thus, although act consequentialists —those who justify each particular act by appeal to the goodness of the consequences of that act, impersonally conceived (see the entry on consequentialism )—could justify friendly acts, they “cannot embody their reason in their motive” (1976, 70), for to be motivated teleologically by the concern to maximize goodness is not to be motivated out of friendship. Consequently, either act consequentialists must exhibit moral schizophrenia, or, to avoid it, they must understand consequentialist reasons for action to be our motives. However, because such consequentialist reasons are impersonal, taking this latter tack would be to leave out the kind of reasons and motives that are central to friendship, thereby undermining the very institution of friendship. (Cf. the discussion of impersonal justification of friendship and the problem of fungibility in Section 2.1 .)

The same is true, Stocker argues, of rule consequentialism (the view that actions are right if they follow principles or rules that tend to result in the most good overall, impersonally conceived—see the entry on rule-consequentialism ) and on deontology (the view that actions are right just in case they are in accordance with certain rules or principles that are binding on all moral agents). For even if rule consequentialism and deontology can provide moral reasons for friendly actions in terms of the rule that one must benefit one’s friends, for example, such reasons would be impersonal, giving no special consideration to our particular friends at all. If we are to avoid moral schizophrenia and embody this reason in our motives for action, we could not, then, act out of friendship—out of a concern for our friends for their sakes. This means that any rule consequentialist or deontologist that avoids moral schizophrenia can act so as to benefit her friends, but such actions would be merely as if friendly, not genuinely friendly, and she could not therefore have and sustain genuine friendships. The only alternative is to split her moral reasons and her motives for friendly acts, thereby becoming schizophrenic. (For some discussion about whether such moral schizophrenia really is as bad as Stocker thinks, see Woodcock 2010. For concerns similar to Stocker’s about impartial moral theories and motivation for action arising out of a consideration of personal relationships like friendship, see Williams 1981.)

Blum (1980) (portions of which are reprinted with slight modifications in Blum 1993) and Friedman (1993), pick up on this contrast between the impartiality of consequentialism and deontology and the inherent partiality of friendship, and argue more directly for a rejection of such moral theories. Consequentialists and deontologists must think that relationships like friendship essentially involve a kind of special concern for the friend and that such relationships therefore demand that one’s actions exhibit a kind of partiality towards the friend. Consequently, they argue, these impartialist moral theories must understand friendship to be inherently biased and therefore not to be inherently moral. Rather, such moral theories can only claim that to care for another “in a fully morally appropriate manner” requires caring for him “simply as a human being, i.e., independent of any special connection or attachment one has with him” (Blum 1993, 206). It is this claim that Blum and Friedman deny: although such universalist concern surely has a place in moral theory, the value—indeed the moral value (cf. Section 2.2 )—of friendship cannot properly be appreciated except as involving a concern for another for his sake and as the particular person he is. Thus, they claim, insofar as consequentialism and deontology are unable to acknowledge the moral value of friendship, they cannot be adequate moral theories and ought to be rejected in favor of some alternative.

In reply, Railton (1984) distinguishes between subjective and objective consequentialism, arguing that this “friendship critique” of Stocker and Blum (as well as Friedman) succeeds only against subjective consequentialism. (See Mason (1998) for further elaborations of this argument, and see Sadler (2006) for an alternative response.) Subjective consequentialism is the view that whenever we face a choice of actions, we should both morally justify a particular course of action and be motivated to act accordingly directly by the relevant consequentialist principle (whether what that principle assesses are particular actions or rules for action). That is, in acting as one ought, one’s subjective motivations ought to come from those very moral reasons: because this action promotes the most good (or is in accordance with the rule that tends to promote the most good). Clearly, Stocker, Blum, and Friedman are right to think that subjective consequentialism cannot properly accommodate the motives of friendship.

By contrast, Railton argues, objective consequentialism denies that there is such a tight connection between the objective justification of a state of affairs in terms of its consequences and the agent’s motives in acting: the moral justification of a particular action is one thing (and to be undertaken in consequentialist terms), but the motives for that action may be entirely separate. This means that the objective consequentialist can properly acknowledge that sometimes the best states of affairs result not just from undertaking certain behaviors, but from undertaking them with certain motives, including motives that are essentially personal. In particular, Railton argues, the world would be a better place if each of us had dispositions to act so as to benefit our friends out of a concern for their good (and not the general good). So, on consequentialist grounds each of us has moral reasons to inculcate such a disposition to friendliness, and when the moment arrives that disposition will be engaged, so that we are motivated to act out of a concern for our friends rather than out of an impersonal, impartial concern for the greater good. [ 8 ] Moreover, there is no split between our moral reasons for action and our motives because such reasons may in some cases (such as that of a friendly act) require that in acting we act out of the appropriate sort of motive. So the friendship critique of Stocker, Blum, and Friedman fails. [ 9 ]

Badhwar (1991) thinks even Railton’s more sophisticated consequentialism ultimately fails to accommodate the phenomenon of friendship, and that the moral schizophrenia remains. For, she argues, a sophisticated consequentialist must both value the friend for the friend’s sake (in order to be a friend at all) and value the friend only so long as doing so is consistent with promoting the most good overall (in order to be a consequentialist).

As a non-schizophrenic, un-self-deceived consequentialist friend, however, she must put the two thoughts together. And the two thoughts are logically incompatible. To be consistent she must think, “As a consequentialist friend, I place special value on you so long, but only so long, as valuing you thus promotes the overall good.” … Her motivational structure, in other words, is instrumental, and so logically incompatible with the logical structure required for end friendship. [493]

Badhwar is here alluding to a case of Railton’s in which, through no fault of yours or your friend’s, the right action according to consequentialism is to sacrifice your friendship for the greater good. In such a case, the sophisticated consequentialist must in arriving at this conclusion “evaluate intrinsic goods [of friendship] and their virtues by reference to a standard external to them”—i.e., by reference to the overall good as this is conceived from an impersonal point of view (496). However, Badhwar argues, the value of friendship is something we can appreciate only from a personal point of view, so that the moral rightness of friendly actions must be assessed only by appeal to an essentially personal relationship in which we act for the sake of our friends and not for the sake of producing the most good in general and in indifference to this particular personal relationship. Therefore, sophisticated consequentialism, because of its impersonal nature, blinds us to the value of particular friendships and the moral reasons they provide for acting out of friendship, all of which can be properly appreciated only from the personal point of view. In so doing, sophisticated consequentialism undermines what is distinctive about friendship as such. The trouble once again is a split between consequentialist reasons and friendly motivations: a kind of moral schizophrenia.

At this point it might seem that the proper consequentialist reply to this line of criticism is to refuse to accept the claim that a moral justification of the value of friendship and friendly actions must be personal: the good of friendship and the good that friendly actions promote, a consequentialist should say, are things we must be able to understand in impersonal terms or they would not enter into a properly moral justification of the rightness of action. Because sophisticated consequentialists agree that motivation out of friendship must be personal, they must reject the idea that the ultimate moral reasons for acting in these cases are your motives, thereby rejecting the relatively weak motivational internalism that is implicit in the friendship critique (for weak motivational internalism, see the entry on moral cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism , and in particular the section on motivational internalism and the action-guiding character of moral judgements ). Indeed, this seems to be Railton’s strategy in articulating his objective consequentialism: to be a good person is to act in the morally right ways (justified by consequentialism) and so to have, on balance, motivations that tend to produce right action, even though in certain cases (including those of friendship) these motivations need not—indeed cannot—have the consequentialist justification in view. (For further elaborations of this strategy in direct response to Badhwar 1991, see Conee 2001 and Card 2004; for a defense of Railton in opposition to Card’s elaboration of sophisticated consequentialism, see Tedesco 2006.)

This means that the debate at issue in the friendship critique of consequentialism needs to be carried on in part at the level of a discussion of the nature of motivation and the connection between moral reasons and motives. Indeed, such a discussion has implications for how we should construe the sort of mutual caring that is central to friendship. For the sophisticated consequentialist would presumably try to spell out that mutual caring in terms of friendly dispositions (motives divorced from consequentialist reasons), an attempt which advocates of the friendship critique would say involves insufficient attention to the particular person one cares about, insofar as the caring would not be justified by who she is (motives informed by personal reasons).

The discussion of friendship and moral theories has so far concentrated on the nature of practical reason. A similar debate focuses on the nature of value. Scanlon (1998) uses friendship to argue against what he calls teleological conceptions of values presupposed by consequentialism. The teleological view understands states of affairs to have intrinsic value, and our recognition of such value provides us with reasons to bring such states of affairs into existence and to sustain and promote them. Scanlon argues that friendship involves kinds of reasons—of loyalty, for example—are not teleological in this way, and so the value of friendship does not fit into the teleological conception and so cannot be properly recognized by consequentialism. In responding to this argument, Hurka (2006) argues that this argument presupposes a conception of the value of friendship (as something we ought to respect as well as to promote) that is at odds with the teleological conception of value and so with teleological conceptions of friendship. Consequently, the debate must shift to the more general question about the nature of value and cannot be carried out simply by attending to friendship.

These conclusions that we must turn to broader issues if we are to settle the place friendship has in morality reveal that in one sense the friendship critique has failed: it has not succeeded in making an end run around traditional debates between consequentialists, deontologists, and virtue theorists. Yet in a larger sense it has succeeded: it has forced these moral theories to take personal relationships seriously and consequently to refine and complicate their accounts in the process.

• Alfano, M., 2016, “Friendship and the Structure of Trust”, in A. Masala and J. Webber (eds.), From Personality to Virtue , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 186–206.
• Annas, J., 1977, “Plato and Aristotle on Friendship and Altruism”, Mind , 86: 532–54.
• –––, 1988, “Self-Love in Aristotle”, Southern Journal of Philosophy (Supplement), 7: 1–18.
• Annis, D.B., 1987, “The Meaning, Value, and Duties of Friendship”, American Philosophical Quarterly , 24: 349–56.
• Badhwar, N.K., 1987, “Friends as Ends in Themselves”, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research , 48: 1–23.
• –––, 1991, “Why It Is Wrong to Be Always Guided by the Best: Consequentialism and Friendship”, Ethics , 101: 483–504.
• –––, (ed.), 1993, Friendship: A Philosophical Reader , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• –––, 2003, “Love”, in H. LaFollette (ed.), Practical Ethics , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 42–69.
• Bernstein, M, 2007, “Friends without Favoritism”, Journal of Value Inquiry , 41: 59–76.
• Biss, M., 2019, “Friendship, Trust, and Moral Self-Perfection”,  Philosophers’ Imprint , 19: 1–16.
• Blum, L.A., 1980, Friendship, Altruism, and Morality , London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• –––, 1993, “Friendship as a Moral Phenomenon”, in Badhwar (1993), 192–210.
• Bratman, M.E., 1999, Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Brink, D.O., 1999, “Eudaimonism, Love and Friendship, and Political Community”, Social Philosophy & Policy , 16: 252–289.
• Card, R.F., 2004, “Consequentialism, Teleology, and the New Friendship Critique”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly , 85: 149–72.
• Cocking, D. & Kennett, J., 1998, “Friendship and the Self”, Ethics , 108: 502–27.
• –––, 2000, “Friendship and Moral Danger”, Journal of Philosophy , 97: 278–96.
• Cocking, D. & Oakley, J., 1995, “Indirect Consequentialism, Friendship, and the Problem of Alienation”, Ethics , 106: 86–111.
• Collins, S., 2013, “Duties to Make Friends”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice , 16: 907–21.
• Conee, E., 2001, “Friendship and Consequentialism”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 79: 161–79.
• Cooper, J.M., 1977a, “Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship”, Review of Metaphysics , 30: 619–48.
• –––, 1977b, “Friendship and the Good in Aristotle”, Philosophical Review , 86: 290–315.
• Friedman, M.A., 1989, “Friendship and Moral Growth”, Journal of Value Inquiry , 23: 3–13.
• –––, 1993, What Are Friends For? Feminist Perspectives on Personal Relationships and Moral Theory , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• –––, 1998, “Romantic Love and Personal Autonomy”, Midwest Studies in Philosophy , 22: 162–81.
• Grunebaum, J.O., 2005, “Fair-Weather Friendships”, Journal of Value Inquiry , 39: 203–14.
• Gilbert, M., 1996, Living Together: Rationality, Sociality, and Obligation , Rowman & Littlefield.
• –––, 2000, Sociality and Responsibility: New Essays in Plural Subject Theory , Rowman & Littlefield.
• –––, 2006, A Theory of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, and the Bonds of Society , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Helm, B., 2008, “Plural Agents,” Noûs , 42: 17–49.
• Hoffman, E., 1997, “Love as a Kind of Friendship”, in Sex, Love, and Friendship: Studies of the Society for the Philosophy of Sex and Love 1977–92 , Amsterdam: Rodopi, 109–119.
• Hurka, T., 2006, “Value and Friendship: A More Subtle View”, Utilitas , 18: 232–42.
• Isserow, J, 2018, “On Having Bad Persons as Friends”,  Philosophical Studies , 175: 3099–116.
• Jeske, D., 1997, “Friendship, Virtue, and Impartiality”, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research , 57: 51–72.
• –––, 2008, “Friendship and the Grounds of Reasons”, Les Ateliers de l’Ethique , 3: 61–69.
• Kawall, J., 2013, “Friendship and Epistemic Norms”, Philosophical Studies , 165: 349–70.
• Keller, S., 2000, “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Properties”, American Philosophical Quarterly , 37: 163–73.
• –––, 2007, The Limits of Loyalty , New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Koltonski, D., 2016. “A Good Friend Will Help You Move a Body: Friendship and the Problem of Moral Disagreement”, Philosophical Review , 125: 473–507.
• Liddell, H.G., Scott, R., Jones, H.S., & McKenzie, R., 1940, A Greek-English Lexicon , Oxford: Clarendon Press, 9th edn.
• Lintott, S., 2015, “Friendship and Bias: Ethical and Epistemic Considerations”,  Journal of Social Philosophy , 46: 318–39.
• Lynch, S., 2005, Philosophy and Friendship , Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Mason, E., 1998, “Can an Indirect Consequentialist Be a Real Friend?”, Ethics , 108: 386–93.
• Millgram, E., 1987, “Aristotle on Making Other Selves”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy , 17: 361–76.
• Moore, C. & Frederick, S., 2017, “Narrative Constitution of Friendship”,  Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review , 56: 111–30.
• Nehamas, A., 2010, “The Good of Friendship”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 110: 267–94.
• Nozick, R., 1989, “Love’s Bond”, in The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations , Simon & Schuster, 68–86.
• Railton, P., 1984, “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality”, Philosophy & Public Affairs , 13: 134–71.
• Rorty, A.O., 1986/1993, “The Historicity of Psychological Attitudes: Love is Not Love Which Alters Not When It Alteration Finds”, in Badhwar (1993), 73–88.
• Sadler, B., 2006, “Love, Friendship, Morality”, Philosophical Forum , 37: 243–63.
• Scanlon, T.M., 1998, What We Owe to Each Other , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Schoeman, F., 1985, “Aristotle on the Good of Friendship”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 63: 269–82.
• Searle, J.R., 1990, “Collective Intentions and Actions”, in P.R. Cohen, M.E. Pollack, & J.L. Morgan (eds.), Intentions in Communication , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 401–15.
• Sherman, N., 1987, “Aristotle on Friendship and the Shared Life”, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research , 47: 589–613.
• Stocker, M., 1976, “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories”, Journal of Philosophy , 73: 453–66.
• –––, 1981, “Values and Purposes: The Limits of Teleology and the Ends of Friendship”, Journal of Philosophy , 78: 747–65.
• Stroud, S., 2006, “Epistemic Partiality in Friendship”, Ethics , 116: 498–524.
• Taylor, G., 1985, Pride, Shame, and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Tedesco, M., 2006, “Indirect Consequentialism, Suboptimality, and Friendship”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly , 87: 567–77.
• Telfer, E., 1970–71, “Friendship”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 71: 223–41.
• Thomas, L., 1987, “Friendship”, Synthese , 72: 217–36.
• –––, 1989, “Friends and Lovers”, in G. Graham & H. LaFollette (eds.), Person to Person , Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 182–98.
• –––, 1993, “Friendship and Other Loves”, in Badhwar (1993), 48–64.
• –––, 1999, “Split-Level Equality: Mixing Love and Equality”, in S. Babbitt & S. Campbell (eds.),  Racism and Philosophy , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 189–201.
• –––, 2013, “The Character of Friendship”, in Danial Caluori (ed.), Thinking about Friendship: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives , New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 30–46.
• Tuomela, R., 1995, The Importance of Us: A Philosophical Study of Basic Social Notions , Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• –––, 2007, The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Velleman, J. David, 1999. “Love as a Moral Emotion”, Ethics , 109: 338–74.
• White, R.J., 1999a, “Friendship: Ancient and Modern”, International Philosophical Quarterly , 39: 19–34.
• –––, 1999b, “Friendship and Commitment”, Journal of Value Inquiry , 33: 79–88.
• –––, 2001, Love’s Philosophy , Rowman & Littlefield.
• Whiting, J.E., 1986, “Friends and Future Selves”, Philosophical Review , 95: 547–80.
• –––, 1991, “Impersonal Friends”, Monist , 74: 3–29.
• Wilcox, W.H., 1987, “Egoists, Consequentialists, and Their Friends”, Philosophy & Public Affairs , 16: 73–84.
• Williams, B., 1981, “Persons, Character, and Morality”, in Moral Luck , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–19.
• Woodcock, S., 2010, “Moral Schizophrenia and the Paradox of Friendship”, Utilitas , 22: 1–25.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , Translated by W. D. Ross.
• Moseley, A., ‘ Philosophy of Love ’, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Doyle, M. E. and Smith, M. K., 2002, ‘ Friendship: Theory and Experience ’, in The Encyclopaedia of Informal Education , hosted by Informal Education and Lifelong Learning.

Aristotle, General Topics: ethics | character, moral | cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism, moral | consequentialism | consequentialism: rule | ethics: deontological | ethics: virtue | impartiality | love | obligations: special | Plato: ethics | Plato: friendship and eros | Plato: rhetoric and poetry | respect | value: intrinsic vs. extrinsic

Copyright © 2021 by Bennett Helm < bennett . helm @ fandm . edu >

• Accessibility

Support SEP

Mirror sites.

View this site from another server:

• Info about mirror sites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2024 by The Metaphysics Research Lab , Department of Philosophy, Stanford University

Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054

• Writing Essay on Friendship: 3 Samples to Get Inspired

When in school or college, you won’t escape the task of writing an essay on friendship. It’s a paper revealing the power of having friends and reflecting on the corresponding values.

It seems easy to write. You craft a narrative about your mates, explaining what they mean to you. And yet, it’s an academic paper. So, some rules are still here on how to structure and format it.

In this article, you’ll find three samples of different essays on friendship. Feel free to use them to get inspired and better understand this paper’s nature and purpose.

Let’s answer all the questions related to friendship essays together!

What Is an Essay on Friendship?

First, the definition:

An essay on friendship is a short academic paper students write to express their thoughts and reflections on the topic.

The purpose is to:

• explore the phenomenon;
• understand what it means to you;
• realize the significance of having close people nearby;
• reveal the pros and cons of committing to a friendship;
• reflect on how friendship can help our wellness.

Friendship essays aren’t about “my friends and I” topics only. You can write about the role of friendship for mental health, craft an expository essay explaining the topic, or build a reflective essay on what friendship means to you.

Friendship Essay Structure

Friendship essays have a standard structure of academic papers. They are short and consist of three parts:

• Introduction about friendship
• Paragraph about friendship
• Friendship essay conclusion

In the intro, you start with an attention grabber. Feel free to use a quote, a surprising fact, or an anecdote. Introduce the topic and finish with thesis statements about friendship.

In a friendship paragraph, you support a thesis with facts, evidence, personal stories, etc. As a rule, essay bodies have three paragraphs minimum. So you can devote each paragraph to one aspect :

• Definition of this concept 
• Why having friends is essential
• What a friend can give you
• Types of friendship  
• Challenges mates meet on their way  
• Characteristics of a good friend  
• How to strengthen a friendship, etc. 

In the essay body, you can use stories and examples from your life to illustrate points. Tell about your friends and share personal thoughts — it will make your paper more compelling to read.

In the concluding paragraph, sum up the points and restate your thesis. Finish on a positive note, leaving readers with the food for thought.

Easier said than done, huh?

Below are three samples of friendship essays for you to see what they look like and how they sound.

3 Samples to Help You Write an Essay About Friendship

While Ralph Waldo Emerson friendship essay (1) is the top example of the paper on this topic, we’ll go further and provide several NEW samples.

Please check:

Short Essay on Friendship

This sample is perfect for high school students. As a rule, teachers ask them to write 150-200-word essays. The task is to describe concepts or things the way they understand them.

Narrative Essay on Friendship

Narrative essays are more about personal stories. Here, you can tell about your friends, include dialogues , and sound less academic.

500 Words Essay Sample on Importance of Friendship

Over to you.

Now, you have three samples and know how to structure this paper. Ready to write yours?

Let’s begin with the “Why is friendship important?” essay — and you’ll see that it’s not super challenging to craft. Be honest, share your thoughts, and don’t hesitate to write personal reflections on the topic.

Still don’t know how to start your essay on friendship? Our writers are here to help. 

References:

• https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/friendship.html
• Essay samples
• Essay writing
• Writing tips

Recent Posts

• Writing the “Why Should Abortion Be Made Legal” Essay: Sample and Tips
• 3 Examples of Enduring Issue Essays to Write Yours Like a Pro
• How to Structure a Leadership Essay (Samples to Consider)
• What Is Nursing Essay, and How to Write It Like a Pro

• Essay Guides
• Other Essays

Friendship Essay: Writing Guide, Outline With Examples

• Speech Topics
• Basics of Essay Writing
• Essay Topics
• Main Academic Essays
• Research Paper Topics
• Basics of Research Paper Writing
• Miscellaneous
• Chicago/ Turabian
• Data & Statistics
• Methodology
• Admission Writing Tips
• Admission Advice
• Other Guides
• Student Life
• Studying Tips
• Understanding Plagiarism
• Academic Writing Tips
• Basics of Dissertation & Thesis Writing

• Research Paper Guides
• Formatting Guides
• Basics of Research Process
• Admission Guides
• Dissertation & Thesis Guides

Table of contents

Use our free Readability checker

A friendship essay is precisely what it sounds like: a paper that students write to describe their relationships with their mates.  It is among the many assignments that students are given in their college institutions.  Writing essays about friendship is a great way to analyze what the connection means to you and reflect on some of your encounters. It can also be used as a tool to improve your closeness and affection. This blog post offers tips you may consider while writing your paper and its outline. It features friendship essay examples that help generate ideas that form the primary focus of your paper.  If you are not ready to waste your time on essay writing, StudyCrumb is here to offer affordable prices and professional writers.

What Is a Friendship Essay?

The definition of friendship essay is quite clear and straightforward. A paper about friends can be described as a write-up on a relationship between two or more people. This interpretation makes it easier to obtain the meaning of friendship essay.  Writing such thematic essay will help you communicate your feelings as well as your thoughts. It allows you to recollect your memories about different encounters you have had in life. It will also help you evaluate qualities of your connection.  While writing, you may have a sequence of events starting from your meet-up, activities you have done together, and how you have sustained the connection. Preparing an essay about friendship can evoke memories from your past that may have been long forgotten.

Purpose of an Essay on Friendship

This kind of essay aims to help you explore its nature and form, its pros and cons, and its role in your life. The importance of friendship essay is that it acts as a reflective tool. It helps you realize the significance of creating and maintaining good relationships with friends. It also explains how these connections contribute to your overall wellness. In addition, an article about friendship may teach you to understand that true friendship is priceless and should stand the test of time.

Ideas to Write a Friendship Essay on

Writing essays about friendship is a more manageable task than drafting a paper about a topic that may require more detailed research. Any excellent essay about true friendship starts with an idea that you can examine.  Below are some unique ideas you can explore:

• What is friendship?
• What does friendship mean to me?
• The value of friendship you cherish in your life.
• Cross-cultural friendships.
• The role of friendship in mental health maintenance.

As you reflect on your relationship with your friend, see if you can write a paper incorporating these themes. Remember to choose an idea that interests you and is relevant to your personal experiences or research. Be sure to support your arguments with evidence and examples from real-life situations, literature, or academic research. Look through our definition essay topics or persuasive essay ideas to find a theme that suits your task best.

Friendship Essay Outline

An essay outline about friendship is a summary of what your write-up will contain but in a less detailed format. You use it to organize and structure your content logically and effectively. It presents the main topics and subtopics hierarchically, allowing writers to see the connection between different parts of the material. The importance of an outline lies in its ability to help writers plan, organize, as well as clarify their ideas. This makes the writing of an essay about friends more efficient, and the final product is more coherent and effective. Here is an example of an outline for a friendship essay.

• Briefly introduce the topic of friendship
• Provide a thesis statement that summarizes the main points of the essay
• Topic sentence
• Your main argument
• Real-life examples that support your key idea
• Supporting evidence
• 3rd Body Paragraph
• Examples or recommendations
• Summarize the main points
• Provide some food for thought

Note that this is a general outline. The exact structure and content of your essay will depend on the specific requirements of your assignment and your personal interests.

Structure of a Friendship Essay

The structure of an essay on friendship typically includes the following three parts.

• Introduction An introduction should grab the reader's attention and provide background information. It should also include a clear thesis statement that sets a path and direction of the friendship essays.
• Body The essay's body is where you will provide evidence and details to underpin your thesis statement. It should consist of several paragraphs supporting and developing a statement of purpose. Each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of your friendliness, such as its importance, benefits, or challenges.
• Conclusion Briefly summarize the essay's main points and reinforce your principal argument. The conclusion should leave a lasting impression on readers and emphasize your topic's significance. Overall, the structure should be clear and well-organized, allowing the audience to follow your argument and understand the topic's significance.

Friendship Essay Introduction

A good introduction about friendship essay should grab the reader's attention and encourage them to continue reading. This can be achieved through a " hook ," a quote, an interesting fact, or a thought-provoking question. Background information can then be provided to give context to the discussed topic.  The introduction to an essay about friendship should also clearly state your main point or argument of the piece, known as thesis statement. This sets pace for the rest of the paper and gives readers a clear view of what to expect. A friendship essay introduction should be concise, engaging, and provide context for the audience to understand the content fully.

Read more: How to Start off an Essay

Friendship Essay Introduction Example

Here is an example of a friendship essay introduction that sets the stage for a reflective and thought-provoking exploration of the most precious gift in life.

Friendship is a special bond that unites two individuals with common interests, experiences, and emotions. It makes life easier and contributes to our happiness. It is a relationship that transcends race, religion, and socio-economic status and has power to sustain and uplift the spirit of humans. In this essay, I will explore its benefits and how it can contribute to a better world. Through personal anecdotes, I will illustrate the bond's depth and role in our day-to-day lives.

Friendship Essay Thesis Statement

The friendship thesis statement aims to provide a summary of the essay's main point. It can be one or two sentences which you develop as you research. The statement of purpose should focus on the central argument and be supported by evidence presented in the body. The thesis statement about friendship should guide the essay's structure. Its main objective is to provide your reader with a roadmap to follow. It should be specific, concise, and accurately reflect the content in your paper. Understanding what constitutes a strong thesis is crucial for writers as it is integral to every essay writing process.

Friendship Thesis Statement Example

The thesis statement must be clear to readers so that they may quickly recognize it and comprehend the paper's significance. It should act as a blueprint of what to expect. A friendship thesis statement sample could be:

In this essay, I will explore friendship's meaning, its importance, benefits, drawbacks, and how it can contribute to a better world. Through a series of personal anecdotes, I will illustrate the bond's depth and its key role in our lives.

Friendship Essay Body

The body part should include five or more paragraphs. Students will use body paragraphs to elaborate on the key factors that make their connection special.

• Definition and explanation. This friendship body paragraph should start with a definition and a brief explanation of its characteristics and qualities.
• Importance of friends. Discuss why it is vital in your life and how it contributes to personal growth and welfare.
• Types of friendships. A paragraph about friendship should discuss different types of friend's relationships that exist.
• Qualities of a good friend. Discuss standards a great confidant should possess.
• Challenges. Discuss the common problems that friends face.
• Ways to strengthen friendship. Provide tips on reinforcing and maintaining good relationships.
• Conclusion. Sum up the key points made in your essay and reiterate the importance of genuine bonds in life.

Friendship Body Paragraph Example

Below is a friendship body paragraph sample.

How to Spend Free Time with Friends • Outdoor Activities. Spending time in nature is a great way to bond with friends. You can meet, then go for a hike, take a walk, or go to a picnic in a park. This allows you to connect and enjoy the beautiful world around you. • Movie Night. Watching a movie is another fun activity you can do with friends. You can share popcorn, grab snacks, and enjoy a movie together. This is a great way to relax and unwind. • Board Games. Playing board games with friends is a fun and interactive way to spend free time. You can play classic games like Monopoly. This is a great way to challenge each other and have a good time.

Friendship Essay Conclusion

Any conclusion on a friendship essay should sum up the main ideas discussed in your essay and restate the thesis statement. It should leave a lasting impression and provide a closure to your topic. To start writing a conclusion about a friendship essay, commence by rephrasing the thesis statement in different words. Summarize the points discussed in your essay by connecting them back to your statement of purpose. End conclusion with a final thought or call to action that leaves a lasting impression on your reader.  It is vital to keep it concise yet impactful. Avoid introducing new information or arguments, as it can confuse readers. Instead, focus on tying up loose ends and emphasizing main ideas discussed in your essay.

Read more: How to Conclude an Essay

Friendship Essay Conclusion Sample

Here is an example of a friendship essay conclusion:

In conclusion, friendship is an essential aspect of our lives that brings joy, support, and companionship. It is a relationship built on mutual trust, understanding, and love. A true friend will always be there for you, no matter what. As humans, we need sincere friends to help us navigate life's ups and downs and provide emotional support. An understanding friend can withstand any obstacle and bring happiness to our lives. The connection is meant to last a lifetime, whether through shared experiences, interests, or simply a common bond. Ultimately, having a close group of loyal friends who truly care for us is one of the greatest gifts we can receive in life.

How to Write an Essay on Friendship?

To write an essay about friendship, start by brainstorming ideas about what friends mean to you and the benefits of such kinds of relationships. Knowing how to write a good essay about friendship involves selecting a great topic and arranging your content in a manner that has logical flow.

1. Come Up With a Topic About Friendship

To brainstorm essay topics on friendship, consider the following.

• Reflect on your own experiences. Think about your own bonds and encounters you have had with allies. Avoid bad occurrences. This can inspire topics to explore in your essay. To find a subject that interests you, you can also look through internet examples of friend essays.
• Ask questions related to friends, such as "What makes a meaningful connection?" or "How does the quality of your bond change over time?"
• Talk to others. Ask friends, family, or classmates about their experiences. They may have interesting insights that can inspire new topics for your essay.

Ensure that topic you select is appropriate for your report style. For example: 

The Day my Best Friend Changed My Life.

You can start this topic by how you met, narrate your story, and then pick out some attributes of a good friend and the advantages of the relationship. Remember to choose a topic on friendship essay that you feel passionate about and can explore in depth in your essay.

2. Do Research

To research and collect information for the friend essay, follow these steps.

• Start with a general search. Use search engines like Google to find articles, books, and other resources on affection.
• Identify keywords. Determine the most relevant keywords for your essay, such as "essay about a friend." Use them in your search to narrow down results to the most pertinent information.
• Evaluate sources. When you have a list of potential sources, evaluate each to determine their credibility and relevance. Look for sources that are written by experts in the field and that have been peer-reviewed or published in reputable journals.
• Take notes. As you read, take notes on the most important and relevant information.

3. Develop a Friendship Essay Outline

An outline is a useful tool for organizing ideas in an essay and it ensures that your essay has a structure. Before outlining you need to have a clear vision of what your essay will focus on. Then analyze every piece of information that you have and categorize it into headings. An outline of an essay about friendships will comprise a list which consists of each paragraph’s topic sentence . By going through the outline, you are able to examine what purpose each paragraph serves. If you need assistance on how to create an outline for a college essay about friendship use the outline example shown below.

4. Write an Essay on Friendship

Writing an essay about friendship is an exciting task. Below is a sample of how you can write your friendship essay. Friendship is the bond between two or more individuals based on mutual trust, support, and understanding. This connection can develop at any stage of life and even last a lifetime. It is a bond that fills our lives with comfort, laughter, and advice during a hard period. Many different factors can contribute to its formation and success. Having similar needs, mutual interests, and social activities can help sustain the relationship. Another crucial aspect is being ready to support each other through happy and difficult times unconditionally. Trust is also an essential component in the longevity of this connection. In conclusion, friendship is an invaluable treasure that brings joy, comfort, and support to our lives. It provides a safe place in a world that can be harsh and unforgiving. It reminds us that we should always stay true to each other.

5. Proofread Your Friendship Essay

When writing a friendship essay, consider the following for an effective introduction.

• Grab your reader's attention. A good introduction makes them want to continue reading your friendship essay.
• Provide context. Give an overview of the friendship essay and its purpose. This will make readers interested in your work.
• Establish your purpose. Clearly state the main idea or thesis.
• Preview the main points. Briefly summarize key points that will be covered.
• Be concise. An introduction should be short and on point, generally no more than one or two paragraphs.

Remember, your introduction will set tone for the rest of your piece and should encourage your readers to continue reading.

Read more: Essay About Happiness : Tips & Examples

Friendship Essay Examples

A sample essay about friendship can be critical to students, especially when they are researching and collecting information. Free friendship essays help you get ideas on how to write and structure your essay. Below are essay examples about friendship that you can go through to help with your writing and draw inspiration from. Friendship essay example 1

Friendship essay example 2

Essay about friendship sample 3

Example of essay on friendship 4

Friendship Essay Writing Tips

Here are some extra tips you need to know that will motivate you to write a friendship short essay.

• You could start with a quote, an anecdote, or a surprising fact.
• Use examples from your own life to illustrate your points in your school college essay about friendship, as this will make your essay more relatable and interesting to read.
• Friendship titles for essays should be clear and straightforward. They should also reflect your main points.
• Describe the aspect of the bond that, in your opinion, is most crucial. It is possible to personalize something that means an entirely different thing to various individuals.

Bottom Line on Friendship Essay Writing

Your central task is to understand what is a friendship essay even before you start writing. Friendship essays explore the nature of our relationships and their various aspects. They can take various forms, from short reflective essays to longer, more analytical pieces. These papers can discuss qualities that make a good friend, the benefits of your relationship, or challenges of maintaining close relationships. Examples of short essays about friendship could be a personal reflection, exploring the unique bond between the writer and their friend and what they hope to continue gaining from each other when they cross paths in future. If you struggle with other papers, feel free to check out our writing guides. From an essay about bullying to a world peace essay , we’ve got you covered.

FAQ About Friendship Essay

1. may i use friendship quotes for the essay.

Yes, it is always a winning step. You can write an essay on friendship with quotes either as the title of your essay or as an introductory phrase. You can also include it in the body of your work while narrating your story.

2. How to write a hook for an essay of friendship?

An essay should hook your reader's attention and make them want to read your story. When writing essays about friendship, you can describe a unique situation in which your friends helped you. You can also end your introduction with a catchy quote, such as Squad goals! Some other quotes that you can use include:

• A road to a friend's house is never long.
• Count your age with friends and years.
• True friend is seen through the heart, not through the eyes.

3. Explain the importance of friendship essay.

The importance of friendship essay is that it teaches students to express their thoughts and feelings about confidants and benefits they obtain from this connection. It also acts as a reflective tool. Friend essays also help students realize advantages of creating and maintaining good relationships with friends and how these linkages contribute to your overall wellness and welfare.

Daniel Howard is an Essay Writing guru. He helps students create essays that will strike a chord with the readers.

You may also like

Essay on Importance of Friendship

Students are often asked to write an essay on Importance of Friendship in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Importance of Friendship

The essence of friendship.

Friendship is a valuable treasure in our lives. It is a bond of love, trust, and mutual respect. Friends stand by us in times of joy and sorrow, making life more meaningful.

Role of Friendship

Friends teach us important life lessons. They help us understand different perspectives, fostering empathy and compassion. They also offer emotional support and help us build our confidence.

Friendship and Personal Growth

Friendship encourages personal growth. It nurtures our emotional intelligence, helps us learn to communicate effectively, and develops our problem-solving skills. True friendship is a gift that enriches our life journey.

Also check:

• Speech on Importance of Friendship

250 Words Essay on Importance of Friendship

Friendship, a profound human experience, is a cornerstone of our social fabric. It transcends the boundaries of race, religion, and culture, fostering an environment of mutual respect, understanding, and shared values.

Psychological Impact of Friendship

Friendship plays a critical role in our psychological well-being. It provides emotional support, helping to mitigate stress and anxiety. Friends serve as a sounding board, allowing us to express our thoughts and emotions freely, which can be therapeutic and contribute to our overall mental health.

Friendship as a Learning Platform

Friendship is also a platform for personal growth and learning. Friends expose us to diverse perspectives, encouraging us to think critically and broaden our horizons. They challenge our beliefs, prompting us to question and refine our viewpoints, fostering our intellectual growth.

The Role of Friendship in Shaping Character

Moreover, friendship shapes our character. The qualities we admire in our friends often inspire us to cultivate those traits within ourselves. They mirror our strengths and weaknesses, helping us to self-reflect and strive for personal improvement.

Friendship and Social Cohesion

On a societal level, friendships foster social cohesion. They promote empathy and tolerance, as we learn to accept our friends’ differences and appreciate our commonalities. This understanding and acceptance can extend beyond our immediate circle, promoting a more inclusive society.

In conclusion, the importance of friendship cannot be overstated. It supports our mental health, encourages personal growth, shapes our character, and promotes social cohesion. Despite its often underestimated value, friendship is an integral part of our lives, enriching our experiences and contributing to our personal and societal well-being.

500 Words Essay on Importance of Friendship

The value of friendship.

Friendship, a universal human experience, is not just a simple interpersonal relationship. It is a complex bond formed between individuals, serving as a cornerstone in the architecture of our social life. It provides us with a sense of belonging, emotional support, and personal growth.

Emotional Support and Mental Health

One of the primary importances of friendship lies in its capacity to provide emotional support. Friends are our confidants, providing us a safe space to express our feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams without the fear of judgment. They provide comfort during times of stress, acting as a buffer against mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Their presence and understanding can help us navigate through the complexities of life, promoting emotional well-being.

Social Development and Personal Growth

Friendship plays a crucial role in our social development and personal growth. Friends expose us to diverse perspectives, cultures, and experiences, broadening our worldview. They challenge our beliefs, encourage us to step out of our comfort zones, and inspire us to become better versions of ourselves. This process of mutual learning and growth is a significant aspect of friendship.

Resilience in the Face of Adversity

Friends provide us with the resilience to face adversity. They stand by us in times of crisis, offering emotional, and sometimes, practical support. Their presence can help us develop resilience, enabling us to bounce back from life’s challenges. The shared experiences of overcoming adversity often strengthen the bond of friendship, making it more profound and meaningful.

Physical Health and Longevity

The importance of friendship extends to our physical health and longevity. Studies suggest that strong social connections can contribute to a longer, healthier life. Friends can encourage positive lifestyle habits such as regular exercise and a balanced diet. Moreover, the happiness derived from friendship can boost our immune system, reducing the risk of chronic diseases.

Friendship and Society

On a larger scale, friendship contributes to societal harmony. It fosters empathy, understanding, and respect among individuals, creating a more inclusive and tolerant society. Friends from diverse backgrounds can help break down cultural and social barriers, promoting unity and cooperation.

In conclusion, friendship is a vital aspect of our lives, providing emotional support, personal growth, resilience, health benefits, and contributing to societal harmony. It is a cherished bond that enriches our lives, making our journey through life more enjoyable and meaningful. As Aristotle once said, “In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. They keep the young out of mischief; they comfort and aid the old in their weakness, and they incite those in the prime of life to noble deeds.” This encapsulates the importance of friendship in our lives.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Best Friend
• Essay on My Favourite Freedom Fighter Mahatma Gandhi
• Essay on Importance of Globalization

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

The Importance of Friendship

Friendships are a crucial part of living a fulfilling life..

Posted July 26, 2021 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• Friendship makes life more enjoyable and enriches one's everyday experiences.
• Finding friends can be challenging but can be often achieved by approaching others with mutual interests.
• The first criteria one should look for in a partner is someone who is ultimately a good friend to them.

As we move through life, we find that there are many things out of our control. We can’t choose our parents, our genetics , or control the things that happen in the world around us. One thing that we can control is who our friends are, and this decision can either make our lives so much richer and beautiful, or more stressful and disappointing. Today we’ll focus on how to choose friends who enrich our lives and make them more beautiful.

Why friends are so important

Having solid friendships is important for two main reasons. First, they make life more enjoyable. We get to share the beautiful aspects of life with people who we love, which can enrich our everyday experiences. Second, our friends help us through the difficult times. Having friends to support us through hard times can make unimaginably difficult situations seem more tolerable.

The most beautiful part about pouring our time and energy into friendships is that not only do friends help enrich our lives, but we enrich theirs too! Friendships get us through the tough times in life, make things more fun and enjoyable, and all-around make our lives better. I urge you to take stock of your friendships and ask yourself if your current friends people build you up and support you, or is the friendship more one-sided?

As we explore friendships today, these are also inclusive of our partners. I believe that the foundation for any healthy relationship is friendship. So it’s important to group our romantic partners into this conversation too.

So, where do we find friends? This might sound silly, but finding friends can be challenging! When I first moved to California for my Ph.D., I didn’t have any friends out here. There were quite a few people in my program that I enjoyed spending time with. But, towards the end of school, they became very busy and were no longer able to dedicate time to hang out anymore. Thankfully, through the help of a very good therapist, I learned that it was important to enjoy life instead of striving for excellence all of the time. As a result, I learned how important it was to carve out time in my life for friends.

Unfortunately, the people I had dedicated time to thus far were achievement-oriented and were pouring their time into work and not our friendships. This forced me to seek out other ways to form connections with people. I ended up finding a local hiking group with the hopes of meeting people with similar interests. During one of these hikes, I met Jim, one of my best friends to this day.

We became instant friends. We have continued to support each other over the years, and even more importantly, we always make time for one another. We both view the friendship as one that makes each other’s lives better, therefore it’s always worth the time and energy. The backbone of any successful friendship is one where both sides put in equal effort and support.

Both Jim and I were forced to put in more effort when he moved across the country to the East Coast. Because we already had such a strong foundation, this didn’t impact our friendship. We talk all of the time and see each other several times a year. We make the relationship a priority no matter what coast each other is on. Like anything in life that is valuable to us, we must work at it and put time and effort into it.

When it's time to move on from a friendship

The second part of the friendship discussion can be a difficult one — reassessing your current friendships and potentially moving on from friends who don’t add value to your life.

Two of my best friends from high school went down different paths from me. We still keep in contact, but I don’t spend too much time with them anymore. The supporting, loving part of our relationship wasn’t there anymore, so it was no longer worth putting energy into maintaining a friendship that had changed so much.

This may be a story you can relate to. What I hope you take away from this post is this — friendships take energy, time, and commitment. And if you’re putting your time and energy into someone who isn’t enriching your life and giving you the support you need, it may be time to reevaluate that friendship.

If you find yourself in the market for friends (who isn’t?) I recommend you find groups or activities that you genuinely enjoy. This way you’ll have the opportunity to connect with people who have similar interests. And once you’re there, take a risk! Talk to people, exchange contact information, and follow up with them. It may feel scary at first, but the reward outweighs the momentary uncomfortable feeling you may have.

Friendship and dating

In many ways, the most important friendship in our lives is the one we have with our romantic partners. The first criteria we should look for in this partner is someone who is ultimately a good friend to us, meaning that they are kind, positive, loving, and supportive. If we’re dating someone and they’re a jerk, it’s probably safe to assume that they’re not a good friend. To avoid this, I recommend seeking out someone who is a good friend first, i.e. before the romance and sexual stuff gets in the way.

When there are bumps in a friendship or a romantic relationship , it’s important to work through those tough times. The tricky part is that it will take two people to fix that issue. We can only control our actions and hold ourselves accountable, but we cannot control our friend or our partner's reaction. In addition to our own actions, we have control over the friends or partners that we choose in the first place. If we prioritize choosing good people who we can trust will work through issues with us, then we can work through anything.

Friendships are a crucial part of living a fulfilling life. It’s so important that we surround ourselves with people who we have fun with, who support us, and people who make us better. You may already have beautiful friendships in your life, but if you’re still in the market for friends, it’s never too late to cultivate new relationships that will make your life even more magnificent.

Robert Puff, Ph.D. , is host and producer of the Happiness Podcast, with over 16 million downloads.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Teletherapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Therapy Center NEW
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Understanding what emotional intelligence looks like and the steps needed to improve it could light a path to a more emotionally adept world.

• Coronavirus Disease 2019
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

True Friendship Essay

500 words true friendship essay.

Friendship is an essential part of everyone’s lives. One cannot do without friends, we must have some friends to make life easier. However, lucky are those who get true friendship in life. It is not the same as friendship. True friendship is when the person stays by you through thick and thin. Through true friendship essay, we will look at what it means and its importance.

Importance of True Friendship

Friendship has a significant value in our lives. It is responsible for teaching us a lot of unforgettable lessons. Some are even life-changing so we must cherish friendship. It is not common to find true friendship in life.

But when you do, make sure to hold on tightly to it. True friendship teaches us how to love others who are not our family. Ultimately, our friends also become our family. A true friendship makes life easy and gives us good times.

Thus, when the going gets tough, we depend on our friends for solace. Sometimes, it is not possible to share everything with family , that is where friends come in. We can share everything with them without the fear of being judged.

Moreover, true friendship also results in good memories. You spend time with friends and enjoy it to the fullest, later on, the same moments become beautiful memories. Only a true friendship will cheer on you and help you do better in life.

Through true friendship, we learn about loyalty and reliability. When you have a true friend by your side, nothing can stop you. Your confidence enhances and you become happier in life. Thus, it changes our life for the better and keeps us happy.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Maintaining True Friendship

While it is lucky to get true friendship in life, it is also important to maintain this friendship so that one does not lose out on it. A time comes when we separate from our true friends, but one shouldn’t let distance act as a barrier.

It is essential to keep in touch with your friends so they know you are there for them. Most importantly, we must give our friends the love and respect they deserve. It is essential to treat them nicely so they never forget their worth.

Further, we must also remain honest with our friends. If you do not offer them all this, your friendship may begin to fade. Thus, make sure to pour equal shares of love, respect and honesty.

Conclusion of True Friendship Essay

Thus, we must never rush to make friends. Remember, true friendship cannot be faked. It will need a good foundation. So, a true friendship accepts the person for who they are instead of changing them. A true friendship will never have an ulterior motive, it will always offer selflessly.

FAQ on True Friendship Essay

Question 1: What are the signs of true friendship?

Answer 1: The signs of a true friendship are that they will accept you for who you are instead of trying to change you. Similarly, they will be there for you in good and bad times. They will celebrate your achievements and push you to do better if you fail. Most importantly, they will tell you the truth even if you don’t like it.

Question 2: Who is a true friend?

Answer 2: A true friend is someone who is always completely honest. Moreover, even if we don’t talk to them every day, we know they will be there for us. Thus, silence never gets awkward with them. We may not talk to them or see them for a long time, but when we meet them, it will be like old times.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

• More from M-W
• To save this word, you'll need to log in. Log In

Definition of friendship

• benevolence
• brotherhood
• cordialness
• friendliness
• gemütlichkeit
• good-fellowship
• neighborliness

Examples of friendship in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'friendship.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

see friend entry 1

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing friendship

• betray someone's friendship

Articles Related to friendship

9 Words for Fellowship

In celebration of the film 'Tolkien'

Dictionary Entries Near friendship

Friendsgiving

Friendship sloop

Cite this Entry

“Friendship.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/friendship. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of friendship, more from merriam-webster on friendship.

Nglish: Translation of friendship for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of friendship for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about friendship

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day, inalienable.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

Your vs. you're: how to use them correctly, every letter is silent, sometimes: a-z list of examples, more commonly mispronounced words, how to use em dashes (—), en dashes (–) , and hyphens (-), absent letters that are heard anyway, popular in wordplay, the words of the week - apr. 12, 10 scrabble words without any vowels, 12 more bird names that sound like insults (and sometimes are), 9 superb owl words, 15 words that used to mean something different, games & quizzes.

What Is The Definition Of A Good Friend?

Research shows that friendship can have a significant impact on not only our emotional well-being but also our physical health . Friendship can affect everything from our blood pressure to our immune function to heal from illness. For this reason, it can be important to define what it means to have a good friend and determine ways to nurture healthy friendships.

Many of us may believe that we have true, close friendships, but may not give too much thought to how we would actually define a good friend. A friend can be someone you've been close to for years, or they could be someone fairly new in your life. They could be someone you bond with over a favorite sport or TV show, or perhaps a new friend you made at school or work. A friend can come from all aspects of our lives.

In this article, we’ll reflect on what friendship is and how to recognize a good friend versus a bad friend using a few possible signs.

What is friendship?

A friend is often someone that you experience a bond with. You may experience some common beliefs and values with friends, and often, a friend is someone you trust and enjoy being around. Friends can be in person or online and can vary in distance. You might have a next-door neighbor friend or a friend thousands of miles away.

Some friends may be casual; you may talk sometimes and enjoy each other’s company, but the connection may not be very strong. With close friends, you may feel more deeply connected and know you can rely on them for support. This friendship may seem very reliable, and this friend may make it easy to pick up where you left off. Good friendships and good friends can often stand the test of time. These relationships are often made from mutual respect and care for each other's well-being.

What is the difference between a friend and an acquaintance? An acquaintance is a person whom you may talk to on occasion and maybe see at a dinner party or other social event, but the bond of a friend or personal relationship is not there. An acquaintance might not be the person you talk to when problems are happening, as you would with a close friend. That said, some acquaintances may become friends, if we give them a chance. The main characteristic of a friend in this case is someone with whom you have more trust and connection.

Possible signs of a good friend

Now that we have a sense of friendship in general, let’s consider a few possible qualities of a good friend .  Here are some possible ways to know that you have a true friend and a quality, healthy friendship:

1. A friend is there for you

A good friend is often someone who will be there for you consistently, whether that is through simple words or grand gestures. A good friend likely won’t desert you because you are having a hard time or experiencing sadness. Good friends often recognize that life can present significant challenges, and they will be there for you when that happens. A good friend stays by your side, and a real friendship goes through these trials and remains strong.

2. A friend listens to you

A good friend is often someone you can be vulnerable and open with. They are often someone you feel comfortable talking honestly with because you know they are genuinely listening and care about what you have to say.

3. You feel good when you're around them

A good friend is typically someone whom you enjoy spending time with, and they may also increase your self-esteem when you're around them. With a good friend, you may laugh, have fun, feel connected, and generally enjoy each other’s company. Rather than worrying about being judged, you can often feel comfortable and confident when you are around good friends.

4. They are empathetic toward you

A good friend is often empathetic to your struggles or what you're experiencing and shows that they care. A good friend will often try to understand who you are, as well as your perspectives and give you space to express your feelings. A good friend typically won’t be judgmental or dismissive.

5. They can apologize and forgive 

In a long-term friendship, there are likely to be some arguments at times. Good friends typically recognize this reality and are able to both apologize and forgive, within reason of course. Good friends can forgive each other and continue nurturing a positive friendship.

Possible signs of a bad friend

If you've been questioning your friendship with someone, there are a few signs that someone may not be a good friend to you. Here are a few signs to consider:

1. They are only around when they need something

Some friends may only want to spend time with you when they need something. When you've given them what they need, they may stop acting like a friend. Friends can help each other, but if the help is one-sided or if the friend is only around when they want something from you, this may be a sign that you're being used.

2. They frequently bad-mouth other friends

If your friends is frequently voicing negative opinions about their other friends to you, then you may consider that they could be saying bad things about you to their friends. If this friend is always speaking badly about others, they may not be someone you can trust.

3. They don’t tolerate differences

Friends often have some differences, be it hobbies, interests, outlooks on life, or beliefs. Good friends can typically understand these differences and accept you for who you are. However, if someone seems to frequently be dismissive, judgmental, or demeaning of you for what you believe, they may not be a good friend to have in your life.

4. They are often flaky

A flaky friend can be difficult to accommodate. If you're the one who is always making plans and they're frequently making excuses or not showing up, you may wonder if they care about the friendship. However, there can be legitimate reasons for this behavior, such as if a person has social anxiety, so it may be best to try to talk with this friend to gain an understanding of what might be going on.

5. They are pushy and not understanding

If a person is pressuring you to do things with which you don’t feel comfortable, such as attending a certain party or trying certain things, they may not be a good friend. A good friend can respect your boundaries. Additionally, if you have obligations, such as work, school, or family, and your friend gets angry whenever you're busy, then this can be a sign of a less-than-healthy relationship.

Many friends may have a problem or two at times, and these signs are not automatic indications of a bad friend. However, if you are questioning the quality of the friendship, considering some of these signs may be useful. Oftentimes, having a conversation with your friend about your concerns can be helpful.

Help with navigating friendships

If you're having trouble with your friendships or want support in figuring out whether or not a friendship may be positive, speaking with a professional counselor may help. Working with a therapist may help you understand your feelings, make sense of different friendships, and learn ways to strengthen your relationships.

Research has found that online therapy can be just as effective as in-person therapy for a variety of concerns. For instance, one research study conducted a comprehensive review of studies on the effectiveness of internet-based interventions for a variety of concerns. It found “no differences in effectiveness” between face-to-face and internet interventions in 14 studies that compared the two.

With online therapy through BetterHelp , you can meet with a therapist wherever is most convenient for you—including from home—which may make it easier to schedule as you won’t have to worry about a commute. You can communicate with your therapist via phone, live chat, videoconferencing, or in-app messaging.

Below are reviews of some of our therapists from people seeking help with similar concerns.

Counselor reviews

“I've been talking with Rebecca since February and she has helped me immensely! A lot has changed in my life and she's helped me create a positive mindset and space to navigate the changes and pursue the type of life, friendships, and relationships I want. Along with this, she's provided me with resources I can use outside our sessions.”

“Danielle is amazing! She's helping me grapple with incredibly difficult challenges in one of my most important relationships. She listens well, synthesizes my scattered thoughts & feelings, and offers helpful tools, activities & resources to work on outside of our sessions. Danielle provides honest feedback and creates a safe space. I can feel that she genuinely cares.”

What does friendship really mean?

According to the American Psychological Association, friendship is “ a voluntary relationship between two or more people that is relatively long-lasting and in which those involved tend to be concerned with meeting the others’ needs and interests as well as satisfying their own desires.” A friendship can differ from a romantic relationship in that friendship doesn’t usually involve passion and physical intimacy.

What is the main purpose of friendship?

Emotional support is typically one of the main purposes of friendship. Friends are often there to celebrate with you during happy times and offer help and encouragement during challenging times.

What is friendship in beautiful words?

The supportive bond between two people in a friendship can be an example of a vital part of overall well-being.

What is most important in friendship?

It could be said that the most important thing in friendship is being able to open up and talk with one another about a variety of topics. This often involves trust and emotional intimacy in healthy relationships.

What are the qualities of a real friend?

Real friends are often::

• Trustworthy

If you’d like to be a real friend to others, it can be helpful to work on these friendship skills yourself. The best friends often display such qualities as those listed above.

How can you tell if someone is a true friend?

A true friend will likely be accepting, nonjudgmental, and dependable. Not all friendships may involve these characteristics, but it’s possible that the people involved in these friendships aren’t true friends. If you seek true friendships, try to ensure that you are also a true friend.

What two things is friendship compared to?

In a poem by Ellen Bailey titled “A Golden Chain,” friendship is compared to both a golden chain and a precious jewel. Friendship can be a valuable addition to our lives that greatly contributes to our overall happiness .

What is the difference between friendship and a friend?

You can define friendships as the state of being friends. Meanwhile, the word friend is often defined as a person with whom you experience mutual affection. Parents and other individuals in the family can often be considered friends, as can people outside of your family.

What are the three main points of friendship?

Vulnerability, positivity, and consistency may be the three main points of friendship. Other factors, like loyalty and emotional support, can also play a part.

What are the three things needed in a friendship?

Connection, fun, and trust may be the three things needed in a friendship. It can also be important to have conflict resolution skills, as most people will encounter conflict at some point during their friendships.

• 10 Relatable Quotes To Help You Process The End Of A Valuable Friendship Medically reviewed by Paige Henry , LMSW, J.D.
• How To Be A Good Friend: A True Friend’s Guide To Lasting Friendships Medically reviewed by Arianna Williams , LPC, CCTP
• Relationships and Relations

Of Friendship by Francis Bacon | Critical Analysis

Of Friendship by Francis Bacon Analysis

As a pragmatic and as an empirical thinker Bacon followed two fundamental Renaissance principles— Sepantia  or search for knowledge and  Eloquentia , the art of rhetoric. This explains, to some extent, the impassioned presentation of his ideas and views and the aphoristic style of his writing. But the essay Of Friendship is stylistically somewhat different in that it contains passionate and flattering statements along with profuse analogies and examples in support of his arguments perhaps because this essay was occasioned by the request of his friend Toby Matthew.

Bacon begins the essay by invoking the classical authority of Aristotle on basic human nature. First, he refers to Aristotle’s view in Politics: Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.  According to Aristotle, a man by nature and behaviour may be degraded to such an extent that he may be called unfit for society. Again, he may be so self-sufficient that he may not need society.  In the first case, he resembles a wild beast and in the second, he resembles gods. Here it should be pointed out that Bacon is not ruling out the value of solitude; in fact, he is reserving solitude for higher kind of life, which is possible for a few great men like Epimenides, Numa, Empedocles, Apollonius and some Christian saints. Here too Bacon is following Aristotelian view on solitude as expressed in Ethics, where Aristotle prefers a contemplative life to an active life:

“It is the highest kind of life, it can be enjoyed uninterruptedly for the greatest length of time…”

Bacon’s logic is that those who live in society should enjoy the bliss of friendship for more than one reason. First of all, friendship is necessary for maintaining good mental health by controlling and regulating the passions of the mind. In other words, Bacon here speaks of the therapeutic use of friendship though which one can lighten the heart by revealing the pent-up feelings and emotions: sorrows, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, advice and the like.

Then in order to justify the value of friendship , Bacon points out the practice of friendship on the highest social level. He informs us that the kings and princes, in order to make friends, would raise some persons who would be fit for friendship. Then Bacon tries to glorify friendship by translating the Roman term for friendship,  Participes curarum , which means ‘sharers of their cares’. He gives instances of raising of men as friends from the Roman history: Sylla and Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar and Antonius, Augustus and Agrippa, Tiberius Caesar and Sejanus, Septimius Severus and Plautianus. Bacon also refers to what Comineus wrote of Duke Charles the Hardy’s deterioration of his mental faculty just because of his reserve and loneliness and extends his judgement to the case of Comineus’ second master, Louis XI. The point which Bacon strongly wants to assert is that friendship functions for a man in a double yet paradoxically contrary manner:

“…it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halfs”.

The second fruit of friendship , according to Bacon, is beneficial for the clarity of understanding. If a man has got a faithful friend, he can be consulted to clarify the confusions of the mind. He calls the counsel of a friend, citing Heraclitus,  “drier and purer ”  than that a man gives himself out of self -love, which clouds his judgement. Bacon then counsel of this sort into two kinds:

“the one concerning manners and the other concerning business.”  

A friend’s constructive criticism of the other friend’s behaviour helps him more than a book of morality. In the matter of conducting practical business, Bacon thinks, a true friend’s advice can also be helpful in undertaking a venture or averting a danger.

• Line by Line Explanation from Bacon’s Essay Of Friendship

Of Ambition by Francis Bacon | Easy Summary and Analysis

• Of Youth and Age by Francis Bacon | Complete Summary

Of Truth by Francis Bacon | Summary, Analysis, Explanations

• Of Study by Francis Bacon | Summary and Line By Line Analysis

Finally, Bacon speaks of the last fruit of friendship , which is manifold in the sense that there are so many things in life, which can be fulfilled only with the help of a friend. In fact, at a rare moment Bacon gets emotional and quotes classical maxim that “a friend is another self”. His point is that a man may have many a desire, which may not be realised in his life-time, but if he has got a true friend, his unfulfilled desire will be taken care of by his friend. Not only this, a friend, unlike the near and dear ones and enemies, can talk to him on equal terms whenever situation demands. Keeping all these things, Bacon concludes that if a man does not have a friend, he may well leave this world. That is to say, he is not fit for the human society to live in.

Related posts:

• Of Friendship by Francis Bacon | 10 Important Questions and Answers
• Of Study by Francis Bacon | A Short and Simple Analysis
• Of Travel by Francis Bacon Summary and Analysis

2 thoughts on “Of Friendship by Francis Bacon | Critical Analysis”

Dear Somnath, Your writing is very good and understandable. Pls write more .. Thanks Sukanta Chowdhury Siliguri 9749044512

Convey my soulful thanks

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Essay on Friendship

Here we have shared the Essay on Friendship in detail so you can use it in your exam or assignment of 150, 250, 400, 500, or 1000 words.

You can use this Essay on Friendship in any assignment or project whether you are in school (class 10th or 12th), college, or preparing for answer writing in competitive exams. 

Topics covered in this article.

Essay on Friendship in 150 words

Essay on friendship in 250-300 words, essay on friendship in 500-1000 words.

Friendship is a cherished bond that brings joy, support, and companionship into our lives. It is based on trust, understanding, and shared experiences. True friends offer comfort and a sense of belonging.

Friends play a significant role in our lives. They celebrate our successes, provide support during tough times, and make our journey more enjoyable. Through friendships, we learn, grow, and gain new perspectives. Friends inspire us and motivate us to become better versions of ourselves.

Maintaining friendships requires effort and commitment. It involves mutual respect, trust, and open communication. Quality time spent together strengthens the bond.

In a fast-paced world, friendships are invaluable. They offer love, acceptance, and understanding. True friends stand by us, providing support and making life more meaningful.

In conclusion, friendship is a precious gift that enriches our lives. It brings happiness, support, and a sense of belonging. Nurturing and cherishing friendships is essential for our well-being and happiness.

Friendship is a beautiful bond that brings joy, support, and companionship into our lives. It is a connection built on trust, mutual understanding, and shared experiences. True friendship goes beyond superficial interactions and offers a deep sense of comfort and belonging.

Friends play a significant role in our lives. They are there to celebrate our successes, lend a listening ear during challenging times, and provide a support system that helps us navigate the ups and downs of life. Friends bring laughter, happiness, and emotional support, making our journey more enjoyable and meaningful.

Friendship also allows us to learn and grow. Through our interactions with friends, we gain new perspectives, broaden our horizons, and develop important life skills such as empathy, communication, and compromise. Friends inspire us to be better versions of ourselves and provide a sense of motivation and encouragement.

Maintaining and nurturing friendships require effort and commitment. It involves mutual respect, trust, and open communication. Spending quality time together, sharing experiences, and being there for each other strengthens the bond of friendship.

In a fast-paced and often lonely world, friendships are invaluable. They provide a sense of belonging, happiness, and a support network that enriches our lives. True friends stand by us through thick and thin, offering love, acceptance, and understanding. They are the pillars of support who make life’s journey more meaningful and enjoyable.

In conclusion, friendship is a precious gift that adds immense value to our lives. It is a connection built on trust, understanding, and shared experiences. Friends offer support, laughter, and companionship, making our lives more fulfilling. Nurturing and cherishing friendships is essential for our well-being and happiness.

Title: Friendship – The Essence of True Connection

Introduction:

Friendship is a unique and valuable bond that enriches our lives with joy, support, and companionship. It is a connection that goes beyond mere acquaintanceship, rooted in trust, understanding, and shared experiences. This essay explores the significance of friendship, its qualities, the benefits it brings, and the ways to nurture and cherish these precious relationships.

The Meaning of Friendship

Friendship is a deep and meaningful relationship between individuals characterized by mutual affection, trust, and empathy. It is a bond that offers companionship, understanding, and support in both good times and bad. True friendship is built on honesty, respect, and genuine care for one another.

Qualities of True Friendship

True friendships possess several key qualities. Trust is paramount, as friends confide in each other without fear of judgment or betrayal. Mutual understanding allows friends to empathize and provide emotional support. Respect is essential, as friends accept and appreciate each other’s individuality. Loyalty ensures that friends stand by one another through thick and thin. Communication is vital for maintaining open and honest dialogue, fostering a strong and lasting connection.

Benefits of Friendship

Friendship brings numerous benefits to our lives. Emotional support from friends helps us cope with challenges, reduces stress, and boosts our mental well-being. Friends offer a safe space for sharing thoughts, feelings, and experiences, providing a sense of comfort and validation. They provide a support network during difficult times, lending a listening ear and offering guidance. Friends also bring joy, laughter, and fun into our lives, creating cherished memories and experiences.

Nurturing and Cherishing Friendships

To foster and maintain strong friendships, it is essential to invest time and effort. Regular communication and quality time spent together strengthen the bond. Active listening and empathy are crucial, allowing friends to truly understand and support one another. Celebrating each other’s successes and offering support during challenges cultivates a sense of solidarity. Honesty and transparency build trust, ensuring a foundation of authenticity in the relationship. Respecting boundaries and accepting differences helps sustain harmony within friendships.

The Role of Friendship in Personal Growth

Friendship plays a significant role in personal growth and development. Friends offer different perspectives, expanding our horizons and challenging our beliefs. They provide constructive feedback, helping us improve and grow as individuals. Through shared experiences, we learn valuable life lessons and acquire new skills. Friends inspire us to pursue our passions, push our boundaries, and achieve our goals. Their support and encouragement fuel our motivation and self-confidence.

Types of Friendship

Friendships come in various forms, ranging from childhood friends to work colleagues, from online companions to lifelong confidants. Each type of friendship brings unique dynamics and contributes to our personal growth and well-being.

Conclusion :

Friendship is a precious and invaluable connection that enhances our lives in countless ways. It offers companionship, support, and a sense of belonging. True friends stand by us through thick and thin, celebrating our successes and providing comfort during difficult times. Nurturing and cherishing friendships require effort, empathy, and open communication. By investing in these relationships, we create a support system that enriches our lives and helps us grow as individuals. Friendship is a gift that brings joy, love, and understanding, making life’s journey more meaningful and fulfilling.

Related Posts

• Essay on Pollution
• Essay on “Impact of Social Media on Youth”

Essential Elements of Valid Contract (Explained With Examples)

What is World Population? Main Causes, Effects, Top 20 Countries

Essay on Friendship in 50/100/150/500 Words

Essay on Friendship: – Friendship is basically a relationship between two or more people of the same or different age groups. As we, team GuideToExam always focus on giving something new to our readers, this time, we have come up with a detailed Essay on Friendship. Varieties of “ Essay on Friendship ” as per the requirement of Students are included here.

Just Sit relaxed and keep reading.

Table of Contents

Essay on Friendship in 150 words

Friendship is a communal and a common faithful and loyal and trustworthy relationship flanked by two or more people who are emotionally involved and interrelated to each other in a friendly manner.

We factually can’t live our entire time of life unaccompanied or alone and for this reason, we require a faithful and loyal connection between two or more people to live gladly and happily called friendship or briefly we call for to have friends in our life, in turn, to make our life with a reduction of boring memories.

Friendship is not narrow or stuck to the age of people that is to say a tiny boy can be there as a good friend with his grandfather or any aged person, sex i.e. a girl can be a good friend of a boy and a boy can be good friends with a girl, literacy point, height or level in the social order, etc. also humans can be friends with animals as they find them more trustworthy the choices of people varies from one person to the other.

Essay on Friendship in 200 words

Friendship refers to camaraderie and proximity. Friendship is something which is something very difficult at the same time it bestows lots and lots of reminiscences too. Steadfast friendship lasts everlastingly but the friendship which was preordained for benefit of no matter which is quite little hurtful.

We can’t choose our family in which we are born. right? Like our parents, brothers, sisters, etc. other than yeah, of course, we can choose our second family which comprises our friends so we should always be very defensive grown up and shrewd enough and should make good quality people as our friends.

Friends can alter a person from Good to bad and even bad to good, the thing which matters the most is friendship or amity or acquaintance or companionship or comradeship or camaraderie or closeness or familiarity or our alliance.

We should make partial friends and be supposed to be faithful with them as an alternative to making plenty of associates or friends or links with people who as an alternative to serving or sustaining or supporting you in your absence, they backbite about you.

Friends craft our life fascinating or very less uninteresting or boring; they fill up our lives with plenty of reminiscences or memories.

Essay on Global Warming

Essay on Friendship in 300 Words

What is Friendship: – Friendship is a divine relation. It can be called a bridge of love between two persons. Friendship binds two souls together.

Why man needs friends: – Man is a social animal. He doesn’t like to live alone. Man always needs a company of some similar liking persons. Man always wants to share joy and sorrow with others. That is why a man needs a friend. A man who doesn’t have any friends can be called an unlucky fellow.

What is true friendship: – Though there is no certain definition of true friendship, we can identify true friendship through some certain qualities. A friend in need is a friend indeed goes the proverb.

A true friend always stands by us in every situation. They not only come on our good days, but they also stand and support us in our bad times. A good friend is always ready to sacrifice everything for us.

We can rely on him in every situation. He/She is the best source of inspiration for us. A true friend always gives us good advice. He also thinks good for us.

Dangers of evil friends: – We must be very careful in choosing our friends. All the people that surround us are not our friends. Some people remain with us only in the days of our prosperity.

They leave us in our bad times. They are not our real friends. Those evil friends always lead us toward the evil path.

My experience with Friends: – I have got both sweet and bitter tastes in friendship. I have some good friends who always think good about me. They are very near to me. But during the early days of my school life, I had some friends; those friends were not real friends.

They didn’t last long. They remained with me during my good times and they left me when I needed their help. Friendship is a heavenly relation. Every man expects a good friend in their life. Without a friend, our life will become dull and Charmless.

Long Essay on Friendship

Friendship refers to companionship and closeness. Friendship is something which is something very complicated at the same time it gives lots and lots of memories too. Loyal friendship lasts forever but the friendship which was meant for the advantage of anything is quite a little harmful.

We can’t decide the family in which we are born right? Like our parents, brothers, sisters, etc. but yeah, of course, we can choose our second family which comprises our friends so we should always be very protective, mature and wise enough and should make good people as our friends.

Friends can change a person from Good to bad and even bad to good, the thing which matters the most is friendship. We should make limited friends and should be loyal to them instead of making lots of friends who instead of helping or supporting you in your absence backbite you. Friends make our life interesting or very less boring; they fill our lives with lots of memories.

Friendship is a shared faithful and loyal relationship between two or more people who are emotionally involved and interrelated to each other in a friendly manner.

Essay on Discipline in Students

We literally can’t live our whole life alone and hence we need a faithful and loyal relationship between two or more people to live happily called friendship or in short we need to have friends in our life in order to make our lifeless boring.

Friendship is not limited to the age of people i.e. a small boy can be a good friend with his grandfather or any old person, sex i.e. a girl can be a best friend of a boy and vice Versa, literacy position, level in the society, etc.

Humans can even be friends with animals as they might feel animals more trustworthy than human beings in short people can share friendship with anything they feel good with.

Friendship normally becomes more powerful or strong between people with the same thinking style etc. no one of us will have an interesting and complete and satisfying life without having friendship, friendship is very important.

Everyone out there needs a friend to share his or her feelings, which may comprise both sadness and happiness. Good friends help to overcome a fear of something.

A friend is the one whom one trusts and loves very much. Good friends help us to be positive and help improve our character etc. friends motivate each other without criticizing them.

True and pure and good friendship is the most precious gift of life. A person should have to be very lucky if have a good friend if you have a good friend then you should feel very special and lucky as very fewer people have this blessing.

Friendship is something that no one wants to lose. True friendship gives us numerous unforgettable memories and many sweet experiences to experience. Searching for a good friend is very hard if we find a good friend, it makes our lives heaven and if our friend is bad he or she makes our life hard and ugly as hell.

Some people are lucky enough to carry or have their childhood friend throughout their lives as childhood friends are found to know each other more but some breaks down their friendship due to misunderstanding, long-distance or other problems, etc. friends are our family outside our home which gives us the best memories of our life.

Article and Essay on Global Warming

Essay and Article on Say No to Polybags

1 thought on “Essay on Friendship in 50/100/150/500 Words”

Çox gözəl bir esse idi.Bu esse məni həyatda kimə inanacağımı göstərdi.Çox təsirli idi.Kraliça Kavişanaya təşəkkürlər.:))))

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Of Friendship Essay | Summary by Francis Bacon

Table of Contents

Introduction

The essay Of Friendship by Francis Bacon celebrated the intimacy between friends which is subjected to both prosperity and adversity without succumbing to the clouds of doubt and jealousy. The essay was written on the request of his friend Toby Matthew.

Human need for company

Bacon introduces the text with thoughts of Aristotle on companionship. He posits that human nature demands company and social contact . Isolation and solitude are traits of either wild beast or heavenly god.

Human beings require other human beings and anyone who avoids such interaction is not doing justice to his natural state. Bacon does not criticize people who feel shy in a crowd and head for therefore seek isolation in the wild.

Such people find great value in peace and it aids their mental processes to contemplate of profound issues. Through their extensive analysis, they journey on a path of self-discovery. Such hermits search for truth and knowledge in continued social sequestration.

However, the consequences of such isolation can be like a double-edged sword, desirable or detrimental. Bacon points to philosophers like Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana, who postulated theories unique to their age and contemporaries.

Their works are of immense philosophical wealth. Even several spiritual men find great benefit and progress through prolonged abstention from public life. Therefore, voluntary retreat from society can have positive consequences too.

Bacon attempts to differentiate between kinship and general crowd. For him, there is a big difference between strangers of society and known friends.  A person can feel lonely in a crowd too . People may become transient glimpses which are lost if a person does not interact with them.

If a person does not feel passionate or interested in a conversation then it becomes an exercise in futile monologues and is similar in meaning to the undecipherable notes of musical instruments like cymbals.

Bacon uses a Latin adage which means that a big city is filled with great solitude. In a large city, people are separated and encamped in distinct areas that are difficult to bring closer together.

These long distances cause separation between friends and relatives. Therefore, for cultivating friendship a small city or town is more conducive . In smaller townspeople live closer by and mingle a lot more regularly. Thus, these small cities have strong and united communities.

According to Bacon, a friendship demands the involvement of passions and feelings. They form the foundation of any friendship. Emotions are the threads that bind the hearts together.

A cure for ailing hearts

Bacon points to the ailments of the heart that it suffers if it stops or is suffocated. A healthy heart required vigour and the same is provided by an intimate and friendly conversation with one’s pals.

The bonhomie is the cure for depression and various diseases of the heart. Friendship is the panacea for heartaches.  A true friend acts a secondary valve for the heart to pump life into a sick person.

Amusing and pleasant badinage acts as a stress reliever for the burdened and ailing heart. It elevates the mood of gloom and deathly isolation that a patient feels and makes him feel good again.

Patients take medicines like sarza for the liver, steel for the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain etc, but for the issues of the heart, the love and affection of a friend is the best cure.

Friendship can be bought

The elite of society like kings and leaders are really adept at making friends. They understand the value of friendly ties with worthy people. The rich and the powerful often try to buy friendships of noble and influential people through gifts, badges of reverence and their wealth.

But such friends lack emotional attachment with their patrons or benefactors. Their loyalty or friendship is tied to generous rewards and they are susceptible to corruption and greed.

Friendship requires a quantum of parity if not equality. Therefore, the massive chasm between the king and his subjects cannot be bridged that easily.

Even if the princes admire certain ordinary individuals they find it difficult to befriend them. The only solution is to elevate such individuals so that they come nearer to the monarch in terms of power and influence.

But such trade in friendship is often problematic. The intentions of someone whose friendship can be bought are not reliable and subject to greed and wickedness. The people who do enter the caucus of such powerful elite become favourites to them.

Bacon tells us that the Romans had a special name for such individuals, ‘ participes curarum ’ meaning people who share one’s fears, doubts and worries.

This sharing of one’s burdens is a true quality of friendship and a strong tie of camaraderie. These favoured individuals gain the confidence of the elite and offer advice to them.

This practice and ploy of befriending individuals have been prevalent throughout history, from able and proud monarchs to weak and cloying rulers.

The empowered elite has used their political wits and acumen to enlist such friends at par with the ranks of nobility and governance.

History teaches the toughest lessons

Now, Bacon comments on some historical examples. He says that Roman ruler Sylla gave Pompey the moniker of ‘the Great’.  However, consumed by arrogance Sylla’s friend Pompey reprimanded and rebuked him in public when they had some disagreement.

Pompey derided Sylla as the setting sun while calling himself the rising sun of Roman power. Similarly, Decimus  Brutus gained Julius Ceaser ’s friendship and became his most trusted advisor . Ceaser was so entrenched in his devotion to Brutus that he made him his heir apparent as well.

His blind trust in Brutus caused Caesar’s final downfall . Ceaser, fearing a calamity owing to his wife Calpurnia’s bloodied nightmare, had decided to dissolve the Senate.

Brutus, however, convinced him to delay his decision. He had such powerful hold over Ceaser that Antonius would call him an enchantress ( venefica ) with evil machinations.

Even though Agrippa was from an ignoble birth, Augustus befriended him and honoured him with royal commendation. Agrippa was showered with praise, privilege and power.

When Augustus decided to marry his daughter Julia, his counsellor Maecenas suggested marrying her to Agrippa.  According to Maecenas Agrippa was the best man for her and in the emperor decided otherwise, Agrippa had to be killed.

Bacon gives the example of friendship between Tiberius and Sejanus. Tiberius was charmed by Sejanus they became inseparable companions. This brought great stature and honour to Sejanus.

Their friendship was considered as venerated as a goddess. Even an altar was attributed to their companionship by the Senate.

Bacon then praised the friendship between Septimus Severus and Plautianus. Septimus’s son and Plautianus’ daughter were married against Plautianus’s wishes.

Even when irate Plautianus condemned Septimus’ son, their friendship did not weaken. On the contrary, Septimus praised his friend beyond reason and logic. He even wished Plautianus a longer and more fulfilling life than his own.

Bacon reiterated that all the historical figures he mentioned were hard and practical men . They did not have the noble heart or compassion like Trajan or Marcus Aurelius.

A valuable blueprint

Every decision they made was strategic and careful and not impulsive or emotional. However, it was their longing for friendship that made them gush in praise of their friends.

Even with all the power in the world, luxuries of life, doting families, they were dependent on the whims of their friends. In the end, these favoured individuals became their nemesis and cause for their demise.

Bacon goes on to highlight the requirement of a friend to share joys and sorrows, successes and failures with. He gives the example of Duke Charles Hardy and French king Louis XI through their diplomat Comineus.

He says that in their last years both of them became reclusive and isolated themselves from others. They grew suspicious of everyone and were afraid of divulging any information that could bring their empires to a collapse.

Bacon points at the parable given by Pythagoras i.e. ‘ Cor ne edito ’, meaning ‘eat not the heart’ . Pythagoras had his suspicions of who can be called as true friends.

He felt that a worthy friend who can be trusted with one’s intimate secrets and even then there would be chances of his trust being broken. He likened it to cannibalizing one’s own heart.

Two sides of a coin

Becoming intimate and excessively dependent on a friend can be a double-edged sword . It can help unburden the baggage of the heart and weight of worries. But on the flipside, it can all be just an illusion of comfort.

Realistically no such friend exists who can reduce one’s own grief and pain. Palliation and reduction of pain through such miracle friends are all but fool’s gold. He goes on again reaffirm the ability of true friendship to comfort one’s ailing heart but at a risk of hurt .

Even Nature testifies to the fact that when two elements combine, they form a better and improved thing. Even if there is an element of faith and risk, human friendship can cure and soothe the injuries of the heart.

Personal bonds can have an embalming impact that enhances one’s quality of life, strengthens mental prowess and. They provide cover in the midst of a storm. Friendship is like the glorious sunlight after that turbulent storm has passed over the horizon.

Bacon proffers a caveat that friends will not guarantee great advice all the time.

But when a person does not have clarity of thoughts and emotions or biases cloud his/her judgment, a friend can be a sounding board or even an enlightened perspective. This can be more productive than hours of contemplative meditation in isolation.

He quotes Themistocles who thought speech can be appreciated only if heard . It was similar to the rich textiles of Arras that needed to be seen to be appreciated and admired for their beauty and craftsmanship.

In the same vein, human thoughts when shared can unlock cluttered minds . Packs of folded tapestry lie underappreciated and overlooked until it is unravelled.

Even a not so clever and witty can have an illuminated opinion when one propagated his thoughts to him. This puts them under a different light. Bacon gives the analogy of the thinker as tool sharpened on the obtuse friend acting as the whetting stone.

Self vs others

Bacon sage advice from well-meaning friends often leads to desirable consequences. Sometimes intuition, instincts, and emotions can tint and obfuscate one’s own judgment.

Our inherent biases can create complexities that can be eased by wise friends. Bacon points at Heraclitus who considered such invaluable advice as ‘ dry and pure light ’ enlightening and comforting.

Bacon warns against cultivating sycophants and men of tact. He considers the counsel of such cloying individuals as more dangerous and lethal and even vain judgments.

Notwithstanding that one should be aware of one’s own limitations of value judgment. It is very rare that men are adequately self-critical and inherent weakness should not cause us to reject the sound advice of able and well-intentioned men.

Such advice can have two purposes. Firstly, personal i.e. out of the goodness of one’s heart and  secondly, conduct  for the preservation of self-interest i.e. for business. Such criticism acts as a check on one’s pride and a cure for vanity.

Bacon says that reading books on good conduct and morality is uninspiring and learning through observation of other people’s behaviour is not always advisable or even possible. In such condition having a friend who is willing to evaluate and criticize our flawed judgments act as a remedy.

History is replete with examples of powerful men who committed the biggest of blunders and damaged their name and position only for a want of some good advice from good friends.

Bacon quotes St. James who warned people against the blindness induced by self-deception regarding one’s own faults and limitations.

People often cannot see their own flaws, especially when met with some success. To them, another set of eyes sees the same things and they do not need other’s advice.

Similarly, a gambler thinks he sees better than the onlookers or a gun can be fired as efficiently from a rest as from the arm. These musings reflect an arrogant and conceited mind which can lead to dire consequences for the individual.

Any good business advisor always weighs the pros and cons and extends the best counsel without hesitation. A man can ask different advice from different friends and it is better than always gunning by one’s own instincts.

However, there could be an element of envy or complacency on the part of anyone advisor if there are multiple advisors. Only loyal and principled advisor the intention behind the advice remains questionable.

Bacon says that every counsellor is limited by his own ability to analyze and study the matter , even if he intends well. Therefore, there always exists a risk that the outcome of such advice is undesirable.

Bacon gives the analogy of a well-meaning but incompetent doctor who gives the wrong medicine to the patient without enquiring about his medical history.  Instead of getting a cure, this could lead to more damage and even death.

To conclude

To conclude the essay Of Friendship , Bacon claims that every businessman must have a single reliable counsellor . A confidant who understands every little detail of his work and proffers correct advice based on sound judgment and analysis of the business.

Multiple counsellors might lead to multiple and often conflicting paths be.  The two main advantages of friendship are emotional support and good advice .

Bacon enlists the third benefit too. He explains it in terms of the pomegranate fruit. He says that a good friend has many parts for different occasions just like the many kernels inside the pomegranate.

Every human being is faced with things that he cannot accomplish on his own. It is here, a friend is more than one body. He is more than his own self. As discussed in ancient times, a friend is a replica of one’s self.

Bacon feels that a loyal and self-sacrificing friend is a friend not just for life but even in death . A true friend will honour is departed friend’s wishes and take care of his responsibilities like taking care of his family, finish all the unfinished things like repayment of debts etc.

Another advantage is of the delegation of authority . At any given point of time, a friend can fill in for any person. Be it running a business or defending the house or safekeeping secrets, a loyal friend is a true blessing.

He is the best deputy anyone can ask for. There are numerous things for which a man requires another set of hands, a pair of eyes and even different perspective. It is here a true friend becomes invaluable.

Bacon feels that when someone is trying to convince others of his value and qualities, he tends to be consumed with haughtiness and thus is easily ridiculed by them. On the other hand, sometimes people become too self-aware and shy and find it difficult to praise themselves.

They feel awkward in asking for a favour or even something they deserve or merit. These problems can be obviated through the agency of a loyal friend who has more social utility and functions that people normally assume.

A trustworthy friend acts a great arbiter or intermediary. He becomes a conduit for messages when it is to be relayed to a pugnacious child or disgruntled spouse or even avowed enemy.

Thus, friends bring a lot easy in such difficult situations and help break barriers of communication . Bacon ends the essay condemning an unsociable man without friends as an aloof being not fit to belong to society.

Can you answer What did Francis Bacon discover as a prose writer?

Play quiz on Of Friendship

Related Posts:

• Random Phrase Generator [English]
• Of Death by Francis Bacon Summary and Analysis
• Random Address Generator [United States]
• Random University Name Generator
• A Grammarian's Funeral by Robert Browning Summary
• Of Love by Francis Bacon Summary and Analysis

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Friendship — What Is the Real Definition of a True Friendship

What is The Real Definition of a True Friendship

• Categories: Friendship Relationship

About this sample

Words: 517 |

Published: Mar 1, 2019

Words: 517 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Friendship essay outline, friendship essay example, introduction.

• Definition of friendship as a precious gift
• Importance of friendship in life

True Friendship

• Definition of true friendship
• Characteristics of true friendship
• Inclusivity of true friendship

Selecting Friends Carefully

• Caution against superficial friendships
• The consequences of choosing the wrong friends
• The influence of friends on the younger generation

The Role of Friends in Our Lives

• Friends as sources of support
• The significance of friends in our best and worst days
• Friends as companions and confidants

The Dynamics of Old and New Friends

• The importance of old friends
• The value of making new friends
• The evolving nature of friendships
• The balance between old and new friendships
• Recap of the significance of both old and new friends
• The enduring impact of friends on our lives

Works Cited:

• Adams, R. G., & Blieszner, R. (1994). Older adults' interpersonal relationships: Potential benefits of friendship and social support. In M. P. Lawton (Ed.), Annual review of gerontology and geriatrics: Focus on kinship, aging, and social change (Vol. 14, pp. 267-290). Springer Publishing Company.
• Bukowski, W. M., Hoza, B., & Boivin, M. (Eds.). (2018). The handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and groups (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.
• Hartup, W. W. (1996). The company they keep: Friendships and their developmental significance. Child development, 67(1), 1-13.
• Ladd, G. W. (1990). Having friends, keeping friends, making friends, and being liked by peers in the classroom: Predictors of children's early school adjustment?. Child development, 61(4), 1081-1100.
• Parker, J. G., & Asher, S. R. (1993). Friendship and friendship quality in middle childhood: Links with peer group acceptance and feelings of loneliness and social dissatisfaction. Developmental psychology, 29(4), 611-621.
• Rawlins, W. K. (1992). Friendship matters: Communication, dialectics, and the life course. Aldine de Gruyter.
• Rubin, K. H., Bukowski, W., & Parker, J. G. (2006). Peer interactions, relationships, and groups. In N. Eisenberg, W. Damon, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 571-645). John Wiley & Sons.
• Sias, P. M., & Cahill, D. J. (1998). From coworkers to friends: The development of peer friendships in the workplace. Western Journal of Communication, 62(3), 273-299.
• Simpson, J. A., Collins, W. A., Tran, S., & Haydon, K. C. (2007). Attachment and the experience and expression of emotions in romantic relationships: A developmental perspective. Journal of personality and social psychology, 92(2), 355-367.
• Way, N., Reddy, R., & Rhodes, J. (2007). Students' perceptions of school climate during the middle school years: Associations with trajectories of psychological and behavioral adjustment. American Journal of Community Psychology, 40(3-4), 194-213.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Sociology Life

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 580 words

1 pages / 571 words

2 pages / 1035 words

1 pages / 1683 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Friendship is a treasured and essential part of human life, enriching our experiences, providing support in times of need, and creating lasting memories. To be a good friend is to cultivate meaningful relationships based on [...]

"A true friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you." - Elbert Hubbard Friendship is a fundamental aspect of human life. It provides comfort, support, and a sense of belonging, making life more fulfilling and [...]

Friendship is one of the most important aspects of life. It's a bond that can bring joy, comfort, and support to an individual. Friends are an integral part of our lives, and we all have different types of friends. In this [...]

Friendship is an essential aspect of human life, which is characterized by mutual affection, trust, and support. It is a bond that is formed between two or more individuals who share common interests, experiences, and goals. [...]

Kevin Powers’ ‘The Yellow Birds’ is a novel concerning modern warfare and the pressures soldiers undergo during and after the war. It is also a novel about the friendship between two men: John Bartle and Daniel Murphy. They both [...]

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, it depends on the lord of Uruk in early Mesopotamia which is Gilgamesh and what he experiences all through his adventure in the tablet. Gilgamesh is referred to his kin as the miscreant. He assaults the [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free