“…Namque hoc praestat amicitia propinquitati, quod ex propinquitate benevolentia tolli potest, ex amicitia non potest. […]Quanta autem vis amicitiae sit, ex hoc intellegi maxime potest. […] Est enim amicitia nihil aliud nisi omnium divinarum humanarumque rerum cum benevolentia et caritate consensio, qua quidam haud scio an, excepta sapientia, nihil melius homini sit a dis immortalibus datum.”
Cicero, " De Amicitia"
"...indeed friendship in its full sense, has precedence of kinship in this particular, that good-will may be taken away from friendship kinship, not from. [...]. How great is the force of friendship we may best understand from this .[...] Friendship is nothing else than entire fellow feeling as to all things human and divine with mutual good-will and affection; and I doubt whether anything better than this, wisdom alone excepted, has been given to, man by the immortal gods "