aristotles_ethics book VIII
for not everything seems to be loved, but only the lovable, and this is good, pleasant, or useful; but it would seem to be that by which some good or pleasure is produced that is useful, so that it is the good and the useful that are lovable as ends. do men love, then the good, or what is good for them?

now there are three grounds on which people love;

of the love of lifeless objects, we do not use the word ‘friendship’; for it is not mutual love, nor is there a wishing of good to the other…

to be friends, then they must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of the aforesaid reasons. [p.511]

there are three kinds of friendship, equal in number to the things that are lovable; for with respect to each there is a mutual and recognized love, and those who love each other wish well to each other in that respect in which that love one another. now those who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get from each other. so too with those who love for the sake of pleasure; it is not for their character that men love ready-witted people, but because they find them pleasant.

therefore those who love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good for themselves, and those who love for the sake of pleasure do so for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves, and not in so far he is useful or pleasant.

perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves. now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of their own nature and not incidentally; therefore friendship lasts as long as they are good- and goodness is an enduring thing.

for a wish for friendship arise quickly, but friendship does not…

states like themselves for the sake of utility
children like themselves for the sake of pleasure

the truest friendship, then is that of the good, as we have frequently said; for that which is without qualification good or pleasant seems to be lovable and desirable, and for each person that which is good or pleasant to him, and the good man is lovable and desirable to the good man for both reasons.

now it looks as if love were a feeling, friendship is a state of character; for love may be felt just as much towards lifeless things, but mutual love involves choice and choice springs from a state of character; and men wish well to those whom they love, for their sake, not as a result of feeling but as a result of a state of character. [p.516]

for friendship is said to be equality, and both of these are found most in the friendship of the good. p.516

for love is an excess of feeling, and it is the nature of such only to be felt towards one person; and it is not easy for many people at the same time to please the same person very greatly, or perhaps even to be good in his eyes.
[p.517]
however aforesaid friendship s involve equality; for the friends get the same things from one another and wish the same things for one another, or exchange one thing for another, e.g.oleasure for utility; we have said, however, that they are both less truly friendships and less permanent. [p.518]

but there is another kind of friendship, that which involves inequality between the parties, that of father to son and in general elder to younger.
the love and the friendship are therefore different also. each party then, neither gets the same from the other, nor ought to seek it, but when children render to parents what they ought to render to those who brought them into the world…in all friendships implying inequality the love also should be proportional, i.e. the better should be more loved than he loves, and so should the more useful, and similarly in each of other cases; for when the love is in proportion to the merit of the parties, then in a sense arises equality, which is certainly held to be characteristics of friendship. [p.519]

now since friendship depends on more loving, and it is those who love their friends that are praised, loving seems to be the characteristic virtue of friends, so that it is only those in whom this is found in due measure that are lasting friends, and only their friendship that endures.[p.521]

friendship and justice seem, as we have said at the outset of our discussion, to be concerned with the same objects and exhibited between the same persons. for in every community there is thought to be some form of justice and friendship too… p.522
now all forms of community are like parts of the political community….p523.
all the communities then, seem to be parts of the political community; and the particular kinds of friendship will correspond to the particular kinds of community.
there are three kinds of constitution, and an equal number of deviation-forms, perversions, as it were, of them. the constitutions are monarchy, aristocracy, and thirdly,,,timocracy..