Q0385

Cicero

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Friendship cannot exist except among the good.
Thinker Cicero
School Roman Philosophy
Source Laelius on Friendship (related)
Theme Friendship
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Laelius on Friendship (related), within the tradition of Roman Philosophy. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of friendship, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Cicero's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Cicero. (n.d.). Friendship cannot exist except among the good. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0385

MLA: Cicero. “Friendship cannot exist except among the good..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0385.

Chicago: Cicero. “Friendship cannot exist except among the good..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0385.

Same thinker

More from Cicero

  1. Any man can err; only a fool persists in error.
  2. Philosophy is the cultivation of the soul.
  3. We are not born for ourselves alone.
  4. The best weapons of old age are the arts and practices of the virtues.

All quotations by Cicero

Same theme

More on friendship

  1. A friend is another self.
  2. Of all that wisdom provides for the happiness of a whole life, by far the greatest is the possession of friendship.
  3. If you wish to be loved, love.
  4. In the bitterest turns of fortune, true friends are proved.
  5. The Master said: Is it not a pleasure to learn and to practice what one has learned in due time? Is it not a joy to have friends come from afar? Is it not the mark of a gentleman to remain unresentful when others fail to appreciate one?

Browse the friendship theme