definition essay on friendship

Essay on Friendship for Students and Children

500+ words essay on friendship.

Friendship is one of the greatest bonds anyone can ever wish for. Lucky are those who have friends they can trust. Friendship is a devoted relationship between two individuals. They both feel immense care and love for each other. Usually, a friendship is shared by two people who have similar interests and feelings.

You meet many along the way of life but only some stay with you forever. Those are your real friends who stay by your side through thick and thin. Friendship is the most beautiful gift you can present to anyone. It is one which stays with a person forever.

True Friendship

A person is acquainted with many persons in their life. However, the closest ones become our friends. You may have a large friend circle in school or college , but you know you can only count on one or two people with whom you share true friendship.

There are essentially two types of friends, one is good friends the other are true friends or best friends. They’re the ones with whom we have a special bond of love and affection. In other words, having a true friend makes our lives easier and full of happiness.

Most importantly, true friendship stands for a relationship free of any judgments. In a true friendship, a person can be themselves completely without the fear of being judged. It makes you feel loved and accepted. This kind of freedom is what every human strives to have in their lives.

In short, true friendship is what gives us reason to stay strong in life. Having a loving family and all is okay but you also need true friendship to be completely happy. Some people don’t even have families but they have friends who’re like their family only. Thus, we see having true friends means a lot to everyone.

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

Importance of Friendship

Friendship is important in life because it teaches us a great deal about life. We learn so many lessons from friendship which we won’t find anywhere else. You learn to love someone other than your family. You know how to be yourself in front of friends.

Friendship never leaves us in bad times. You learn how to understand people and trust others. Your real friends will always motivate you and cheer for you. They will take you on the right path and save you from any evil.

Similarly, friendship also teaches you a lot about loyalty. It helps us to become loyal and get loyalty in return. There is no greater feeling in the world than having a friend who is loyal to you.

Moreover, friendship makes us stronger. It tests us and helps us grow. For instance, we see how we fight with our friends yet come back together after setting aside our differences. This is what makes us strong and teaches us patience.

Therefore, there is no doubt that best friends help us in our difficulties and bad times of life. They always try to save us in our dangers as well as offer timely advice. True friends are like the best assets of our life because they share our sorrow, sooth our pain and make us feel happy.

{ “@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “FAQPage”, “mainEntity”: [{ “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What is the significance of friendship?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “Friendships are important in life because they teach us a lot of lessons. Everyone needs friends to share their happiness and sadness. Friendship makes life more entertaining and it makes you feel loved.”} }, { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What is true friendship?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”:”True friendship means having a relationship free of any formalities. It is free from any judgments and it makes you feel loved and accepted.”} }] }

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

• 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

Essays About Friendships: Top 6 Examples and 8 Prompts

Friendships are one of life’s greatest gifts. To write a friendship essay, make this guide your best friend with its essays about friendships plus prompts.

Every lasting relationship starts with a profound friendship. The foundations that keep meaningful friendships intact are mutual respect, love, laughter, and great conversations. Our most important friendships can support us in our most trying times. They can also influence our life for the better or, the worse, depending on the kind of friends we choose to keep. 

As such, at an early age, we are encouraged to choose friends who can promote a healthy, happy and productive life. However, preserving our treasured friendships is a lifelong process that requires investments in time and effort.

6 Informative Essay Examples

1. the limits of friendships by maria konnikova, 2. friendship by ralph waldo emerson, 3. don’t confuse friendships and business relationships by jerry acuff, 4. a 40-year friendship forged by the challenges of busing by thomas maffai, 5. how people with autism forge friendships by lydia denworth, 6.  friendships are facing new challenges thanks to the crazy cost of living by habiba katsha , 1. the importance of friendship in early childhood development, 2. what makes a healthy friendship, 3. friendships that turn into romance, 4. long-distance friendship with social media, 5. dealing with a toxic friendship, 6. friendship in the workplace, 7. greatest friendships in literature, 8. friendships according to aristotle .

…”[W]ithout investing the face-to-face time, we lack deeper connections to them, and the time we invest in superficial relationships comes at the expense of more profound ones.”

Social media is challenging the Dunbar number, proving that our number of casual friends runs to an average of 150. But as we expand our social base through social media, experts raise concerns about its effect on our social skills, which effectively develop through physical interaction.

“Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party.”

The influential American essayist Emerson unravels the mysteries behind the divine affinity that binds a friendship while laying down the rules and requirements needed to preserve the fellowship. To Emerson, friendship should allow a certain balance between agreement and disagreement. You might also be interested in these articles about best friends .

“Being friendly in business is necessary but friendships in business aren’t. That’s an important concept. We can have a valuable business relationship without friendship. Unfortunately, many mistakenly believe that the first step to building a business relationship is to develop a friendship.”

This essay differentiates friends from business partners. Using an anecdote, the essay warns against investing too much emotion and time in building friendships with business partners or customers, as such an approach may be futile in increasing sales.

“As racial tensions mounted around them, Drummer and Linehan developed a close connection—one that bridged their own racial differences and has endured more than four decades of evolving racial dynamics within Boston’s schools. Their friendship als­o served as a public symbol of racial solidarity at a time when their students desperately needed one.”

At a time when racial discrimination is at its highest, the author highlights a friendship they built and strengthened at the height of tensions during racial desegregation. This friendship proves that powerful interracial friendships can still be forged and separate from the politics of race.

“…15-year-old Massina Commesso worries a lot about friendship and feeling included. For much of her childhood, Massina had a neurotypical best friend… But as they entered high school, the other friend pulled away, apparently out of embarrassment over some of Massina’s behavior.”

Research debunks the myth that people with autism naturally detest interaction — evidence suggests the opposite. Now, research is shedding more light on the unique social skills of people with autism, enabling society to find ways to help them find true friendships. 

“The cost of living crisis is affecting nearly everyone, with petrol, food and electricity prices all rising. So understandably, it’s having an impact on our friendships too.”

People are now more reluctant to dine out with friends due to the rapidly rising living costs. Friendships are being tested as friends need to adjust to these new financial realities and be more creative in cultivating friendships through lower-cost get-togethers.

8 Topic Prompts on Essays About Friendships

More than giving a sense of belonging, friendships help children learn to share and resolve conflicts. First, find existing research linking the capability to make and keep friends to one’s social, intellectual, and emotional development. 

Then, write down what schools and households can do to reinforce children’s people skills. Here, you can also tackle how they can help children with learning, communication, or behavioral difficulties build friendships, given how their conditions interfere with their capabilities and interactions. 

As with plants, healthy friendships thrive on fertile soil. In this essay, list the qualities that make “fertile soil” and explain how these can grow the seeds of healthy friendships. Some examples include mutual respect and the setting of boundaries. 

Then, write down how you should water and tend to your dearest friendships to ensure that it thrives in your garden of life. You can also discuss your healthy friendships and detail how these have unlocked the best version of yourself. 

Marrying your best friend is a romance story that makes everyone fall in love. However, opening up about your feelings for your best friend is risky. For this prompt, collate stories of people who boldly made the first step in taking their friendship to a new level.

Hold interviews to gather data and ask them the biggest lesson they learned and what they can share to help others struggling with their emotions for their best friend. Also, don’t forget to cite relevant data, such as this study that shows several romantic relationships started as friendships. 

It’s challenging to sustain a long-distance friendship. But many believe that social media has narrowed that distance through an online connection. In your essay, explain the benefits social media has offered in reinforcing long-distance friendships. 

Determine if these virtual connections suffice to keep the depth of friendships. Make sure to use studies to support your argument. You can also cite studies with contrasting findings to give readers a holistic view of the situation.

It could be heartbreaking to feel that your friend is gradually becoming a foe. In this essay, help your readers through this complicated situation with their frenemies by pointing out red flags that signal the need to sever ties with a friend. Help them assess when they should try saving the friendship and when they should walk away. Add a trivial touch to your essay by briefly explaining the origins of the term “frenemies” and what events reinforced its use. 

We all know that there is inevitable competition in the workplace. Added to this are the tensions between managers and employees. So can genuine friendships thrive in a workplace? To answer this, turn to the wealth of experience and insights of long-time managers and human resource experts. 

First, describe the benefits of fostering friendships in the workplace, such as a deeper connection in working toward shared goals, as well as the impediments, such as inherent competition among colleagues. Then, dig for case studies that prove or disprove the relevance and possibility of having real friends at work.

Whether it be the destructive duo like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, or the hardworking pair of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, focus on a literary friendship that you believe is the ultimate model of friendship goals. 

Narrate how the characters met and the progression of their interactions toward becoming a friendship. Then, describe the nature of the friendship and what factors keep it together. 

In Book VIII of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes about three kinds of friendships: pleasure, utility, and virtue. Dive deeper into the Greek philosopher’s mind and attempt to differentiate his three types of friendships. 

Point out ideas he articulated most accurately about friendship and parts you disagree with. For one, Aristotle refutes the concept that friendships are necessarily built on likeness alone, hence his classification of friendships. Do you share his sentiments? 

Read our Grammarly review before you submit your essay to make sure it is error-free! Tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead.

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

View all posts

• 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

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Interpersonal Relationship — Friendship

Essays on Friendship

Friendship essay topics and outline examples, essay title 1: the essence of friendship: understanding, nurturing, and sustaining meaningful connections.

Thesis Statement: This essay explores the multifaceted nature of friendship, delving into the qualities that define meaningful connections, the importance of empathy and trust, and the ways individuals can nurture and sustain lifelong friendships.

• Introduction
• The Essence of Friendship: Definition and Characteristics
• Building Strong Bonds: Trust, Empathy, and Open Communication
• The Role of Shared Experiences: Memories, Challenges, and Growth
• Friendship Across Generations: Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood
• Nurturing Lifelong Friendships: Strategies for Maintaining Close Connections
• The Power of Friendship: Positive Effects on Mental and Emotional Well-being
• Conclusion: The Enduring Significance of Friendship in Human Lives

Essay Title 2: Digital Friendships in the Age of Social Media: Examining the Impact of Online Connections

Thesis Statement: This essay explores the evolving landscape of friendship in the digital age, analyzing the benefits and challenges of online friendships, the role of social media, and the impact of virtual connections on social interaction.

• The Rise of Digital Friendships: Social Media, Forums, and Virtual Communities
• Online vs. Offline Friendships: A Comparative Analysis
• Challenges of Digital Friendships: Miscommunication, Isolation, and Cyberbullying
• The Positive Side: Support, Networking, and Global Connections
• Social Media and Friendship Maintenance: The Role of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
• The Future of Friendship: Technology's Influence on Social Interaction
• Conclusion: Navigating the Complex World of Digital Friendships

Essay Title 3: Cross-Cultural Friendships: Exploring the Dynamics, Challenges, and Rewards of Global Connections

Thesis Statement: This essay focuses on cross-cultural friendships, examining the dynamics of friendships that transcend borders and cultures, the challenges of intercultural communication, and the enriching experiences that arise from diverse friendships.

• Cross-Cultural Friendships Defined: Sharing Lives Across Borders
• Communication Across Cultures: Language, Values, and Cultural Sensitivity
• The Challenges of Cross-Cultural Friendships: Misunderstandings and Stereotypes
• The Rewards of Diversity: Broadened Perspectives, Cultural Exchange, and Global Citizenship
• Case Studies: Real-Life Stories of Cross-Cultural Friendships
• Building Bridges: Strategies for Cultivating and Sustaining Cross-Cultural Friendships
• Conclusion: Embracing Diversity and Celebrating the Unity of Global Friendships

Narrative About Friendship

The importance of different types of friends, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Tears of a Tiger Character Analysis

What is the real definition of a true friendship, a letter to my best friend, my experience in friendship, 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

A Personal Experience with True Friendship

Friendship and its importance in our life, the true meaning of the word friendship, the importance and role of my best friend in my life, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

Friendship is a Very Special Relationship

The role of friendship in my life, how great it is to have a friend, the role of friend in a person’s life, how friendship helps students succeed in the university, my best friend and his role in my life, true friendship in stephen chbosky's the perks of being a wallflower, friendship depends on the individuals and circumstances, a distinctive friendship in finding forrester, an experience of my friendship with a narcissist, friendship in of mice and men, the importance of friendship in the epic of gilgamesh, the role of mindset in romantic relationships, the day i met an amazing friend, whether to share everything with my best friends, difference between two of my friends, shared regard and religious fraternity in fellowship, the most important person in my life, the loss of a pet that changed my life, making friends and the importance of friendship, relevant topics.

• Interpersonal Communication
• Conflict Resolution
• Effective Communication
• Effects of Social Media
• Discourse Community
• Sex, Gender and Sexuality
• Social Justice
• Physical Appearance

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!

Bibliography

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

• 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

What is Friendship?

Emerson's praise and worries about friends.

Posted March 8, 2017

The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair.

When researchers tell us that they've associated friendship with not just happiness but health (including specifics like better recovery from cancer ), it can seem as if friendship is something you ought to just go out and get yourself.

But there are certainly mysteries involved in friendship, despite how confident we might be about the practical advantages of having a good friend or two. And no matter how much we appreciate our friends, the relationship is still likely to be a peculiar one, full of ups and downs and a particular kind of commitment. We can know who are true friends are without stopping to consider how much luck is involved in friendship, or how a true friend really differs from someone with whom we are just friendly.

So perhaps philosophy can be of some help.

Aristotle's account of friendship might be his most-studied proposal. It's easily detached from his full ethical account and as a result it can be explained simply. It is also helpful, because we do not tend to analyze the concept of "friendship," despite how frequently we engage and depend on our friends.

Aristotle suggested that there were three types of friendship: a pleasure-based sort, where you stay friends as long as you are having a good time with a person; a utility-based sort, where you stay friends because it is so convenient to do so; and a virtue-sort, which is out of reach for most of us, but the very best kind of friendship. Aristotle tells us you are to live your life with a friend like this, sharing meals and everyday experiences together. But all of this depends on your commitment to pursuing virtue, and most of us don't have the time for that.

If we really want to think critically about our own friendships, I suggest Ralph Waldo Emerson be given more attention .

Emerson, an incredibly influential and charismatic figure, noted in his day for inspiring the deepest of admiration from those around him, has an incredibly thoughtful essay titled "On Friendship." It is a rousing tribute to friends. The Epicureans were known for putting friendship in the category of immortal good , but you can scarcely find friendship lauded in more cosmic terms than you do in Emerson.

And yet, Emerson seems more realistic than Aristotle on friendship. Though we do require some degree of magnanimity to be marked as a friend, Emerson certainly does not require we have virtue. Here is what he thinks it does take. It seems a certain independence is necessary in a friend:

Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a word or a look, his real sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him not cease an instant to be himself. … The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There must be very two, before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them.

It is important for our self-respect, that our friends resist us a bit and push back on some of our ideas. It is awful to feel you have a friend due to pity. He also notes how odd it is that we will never become friends with some people, no matter how much time we spend with them, writing, "No two men but, being left alone with each other, enter into simpler relations. Yet it is affinity that determines which two shall converse. Unrelated men give little joy to each other; will never suspect the latent powers of each."

And yet, Emerson never suggests that any friendship itself can lives up to its promise. Is this also realistic?

The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less easy to establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring, and daring, which can love us, and which we can love.

His suggestion seems to be that friends inspire us, but not through our daily interactions. It is the idea that we have made friends, that we have friends, that seems to do all the bolstering work, for Emerson. His advice is unusual, and it certainly complicates any over-cheery advice that assume the relationship between friends is a simple one:

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on our own terms, and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I cannot afford to speak much with my friend.

Enjoy the rest here: http://www.emersoncentral.com/friendship.htm

Jennifer Baker, Ph.D., is an associate professor of philosophy at the College of Charleston.

• 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

• 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 4 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.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

The tangled history of 'it's' and 'its', more commonly misspelled words, why does english have so many silent letters, your vs. you're: how to use them correctly, every letter is silent, sometimes: a-z list of examples, popular in wordplay, the words of the week - mar. 29, 10 scrabble words without any vowels, 12 more bird names that sound like insults (and sometimes are), 8 uncommon words related to love, 9 superb owl words, games & quizzes.

1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Aristotle on Friendship: What Does It Take to Be a Good Friend?

Author: G. M. Trujillo, Jr. Category: Ethics , Historical Philosophy Wordcount: 992

Imagine that you could choose between living two lives. Option 1 promises amazing beauty, wealth, power, fame, and health. But you would have zero friends. Option 2 offers only average beauty, wealth, reputation, and health. But you would have profound friendships.

Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) bet that no one would choose the first option. [1] He argued that we need friends to live a good life. After all, when life is bad, they help us. And when life is good, they celebrate with us. [2]

Aristotle’s claims about friendship began debates that continue today. [3] This essay presents his views on friendship and a contemporary debate he inspired.

1. Friendship, Useful Friends, and Pleasurable Friends

For Aristotle, all friendships are relationships where people mutually like each other, do good for one another, and share goals for the time they spend together. [4] But the friendship changes depending on the reasons that friends value each other and the ways that they do good for each other.

Consequently, Aristotle split friendship into three types. The first two types—useful and pleasurable friendships—are similar to each other.

Useful friendships are those between people whose foremost goal is to work together to accomplish some practical goal. Think coworkers or teammates.

Pleasurable friendships are those between people who routinely enjoy themselves together. Think friends who you invite to meals or nights out, or those you play games with. [5]

Useful and pleasurable friendships have upsides. They are casual and easy to form, as they are defined by their small-scale goals. Useful friends focus on getting things done, and pleasurable friends focus on enjoying each other’s company. The basis for these friendships, and the reason behind the mutual affection and planning, is simple use or pleasure.

But these friendships also have downsides. As soon as the task or fun disappears, so do these friendships. Consider what often happens to friendships with your coworkers when you leave your job, or what usually happens with most of your teammates when you quit playing a sport. Useful and pleasurable friendships are mostly motivated by what people can get out of them. This is why Aristotle deemed them as imperfect compared to the last type.

2. Virtuous Friends, the Best Friends

For Aristotle, the best friendships have a deeper meaning than utility or pleasure: becoming better people together. They are rare and hard to form. But they are the most important for living a good life. [6] Aristotle called these virtuous friendships .

Virtuous friends not only focus on getting things done or having a good time together. Rather, they primarily focus on each other as persons , attending to character and flourishing. They want their friends to be good people and live good lives for their own sake . And they work together to accomplish this. [7]

Virtuous friends become a part of each other’s lives by spending time together and having deep conversations. They share the same core ideas about what it means to be a good person and live a good life. [8] Aristotle argued that this deep bond makes virtuous friends “other selves,” or, “One soul dwelling in two bodies.” [9] Together, virtuous friends live, learn, struggle, and improve.

Living a full life is difficult. Not only do we need to become good as individuals, but also as family members, citizens, and contributors to our communities. And we need to avoid the common dangers of pursuing money above all things, caring too much about what strangers think, and losing ourselves in hobbies or addictions. Virtuous friends help with this. In success, friends celebrate. In failure, friends offer comfort and counsel, and sometimes they speak hard truths that only people who know and love you can. [10]

3. Do Good Friends Have to Be Good People?

When philosophers discuss friendship, they usually have Aristotle’s virtuous friendship in mind. Implicitly, it is taken as the most important type of friendship to scrutinize. Specifically, some philosophers debate whether immoral actions or bad people corrupt the quality of friendships. [11]

Imagine that your phone wakes you up late at night. It’s your best friend. She says it’s an emergency, and she needs your help. So you rush to the address she gave you. Then she reveals that she’s murdered someone. She asks you to help hide the body. But now you wonder: would a good friend help to hide the corpse, or would she encourage her friend to explain the situation to the authorities? [12]

This case raises some related questions: is being a good friend compatible with doing immoral things together? Can bad people really be good friends? And generally, are the good things about friendship also things that we should judge by moral standards?

Aristotle and Aristotelians argue that good friends must be ethically good people. Virtuous friends largely share the same values and help each other become excellent—and they hold each other accountable. Such explicitly ethical goals make immorality incompatible with deep friendship. So, in this scenario, Aristotelians would say that your friend who calls you to ask for help hiding a corpse is no longer a good friend. This request changes the friendship fundamentally for the worse. [13]

Non-Aristotelians disagree. They argue that the qualities that we appreciate in friendship are separate from complying with moral principles. Good friends share interests and are loyal to each other. And this is compatible with sometimes doing immoral things. A moral failure does not mean a failure in friendship. In fact, helping your friend in morally dubious circumstances might indicate that you are a real friend. [14]

4. Conclusion

Philosophers might disagree with Aristotle about how to define friendship or who can be a good friend. However, most agree that we must analyze our own ideas about what it means to be a good friend and whether we live up to them. Friendships reveal important things about who we are and how we love. And if, as Aristotle argued, good friends make us better and bad friends make us worse, our friendships could make or break us. [15]

[1] Aristotle wrote, “For no one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all other good things” (2020, NE 1155a5-6). Aristotle’s greatest work, Nicomachean Ethics , dedicated two of its ten books to friendship, Books VIII and IX. And they have largely set the philosophical agenda for discussing friendship. Often, even philosophers who disagree with Aristotle start by summarizing his views. As far as philosophers and poets who came before Aristotle, none produced a definitive theory of friendship. For example, Plato’s Lysis discusses friendship. But as with many Socratic dialogues, there is no conclusive definition or view. However, for an argument that Greek philosophers before Aristotle had a theory of friendship, see: El Murr 2020.

Throughout, this essay will translate Aristotle’s Greek word philos as “friend” and philia as “friendship.” This is the most accessible way to render the Greek in English, and it captures the idea of being committed to someone in a specific context. The hope is that this broadens the terms outside of excessively specified roles in Greek society but doesn’t make friendship into a contemporary notion of abstract regard for others without context. However, a few things need clarification. First, the Greek philia refers to more types of relationships than the English “friendship.” Philia refers to friendship, but also the relationship between family members, spouses, lovers, members of a political community, or patrons and clients. Second, philia describes relationships with widely varying qualities. Some are deep with knowledge, emotion, and well-wishing; some are shallow and casual. Philia can be long-term and durable or transitory and quick to vanish. Philia encompasses voluntary associations replete with choice, as in choosing your friends or confidants, but it can also include unchosen associations, such as family. Philia can be sexual and desirous, or it can be friendly and cool. Third, philia can be translated as “love.” But in the context of relationships with others, many Greek words might also be translated as “love.” Storgē means love, often within familial contexts or within the context of affection. Eros means love, often with romantic implications. And not as much a concern for ancient Greece, but important to mention because Christian philosophers make use of the term, agapē gets rendered as love, usually within the context of God loving creation, or selfless love. These complex associations lead some philosophers to leave terms untranslated and merely transliterate them into the English alphabet, e.g., change φιλία to philia (see: Nussbaum 2009). This essay, however, opts for translation, hoping that the context of this discussion about friendship removes ambiguities. But serious scholarship about Aristotle’s theory of friendship attends to the details of the original Greek. For more discussion on translation, see: Annas 1993, pp. 223-4; Nussbaum 2009, p. 354; Cooper 1999a, p. 313, no. 5.

[2] Aristotle, NE , 1171b28. Aristotle himself had powerful friends. His teacher was Plato, and his student was Alexander the Great. He also had powerful enemies who drove him into exile, where he died. There is a famous saying regarding Aristotle’s death. Aristotle was living in Athens and running his school, The Lyceum. But politics in Athens shifted against Aristotle’s home city-state of Macedonia and against the rulers who Aristotle associated with, Phillip II and Alexander the Great. Aristotle feared that Athens would try to do the same thing to him that they did to Socrates, hold a mockery of a trial and sentence him to death. Aristotle apocryphally said, “I will not let Athens sin twice against philosophy,” and he took exile in Chalcis, where he died. See: Diogenes Laertius, 2018, V.5-6, 10; Shields 2020, sec. 1, esp. n. 3; Nussbaum 2009, p. 345, n. 8.

[3] For many historical examples of philosophers celebrating and analyzing friendship, see: Pakaluk 1991. For the rare exceptions of historical philosophers who criticize friendship, see: Trujillo 2020.

It is also important to note that this small article cannot go into all the issues Aristotle covered when discussing friendship. For example, there is arguably a fourth type of friendship, civic friendship, that describes people living in a political community together. (See: Cooper 1999b for an overview of Aristotle’s theory of civic friendship. See: Cherry 2021 for a debate between her and Robert Talisse about civic friendship and whether it can solve political polarization in the USA.) Additionally, Aristotle discusses matters of equality in money and power, arguing that good friends must be as equal as possible. Also, because Aristotle usually focuses on the best people possible, his work leaves open questions about what friendships look like for the rest of us, those morally imperfect and without all the wealth and power that Aristotle (or the people he had in mind) had. All these questions have become invaluable in the philosophy of technology, where people now use these distinctions to talk about social media, online friendships, robots, and friendships involving far-future technology. Aristotelians shape many conversations about the past, present, and future of friendship. (See: Elder 2018.)

[4] This essay takes a general stance with respect to the common features of useful, pleasurable, and virtuous friendships, especially as characterized by Aristotle in Rhetoric II.4: “We may describe friendly feeling towards anyone as wishing for him what you believe to be good things, not for your own sake but for his, and being inclined, so far as you can, to bring these things about. A friend is one who feels thus and excites these feelings in return. Those who think they feel thus towards each other think themselves friends.”

It is clear that, for Aristotle, some amount of reciprocity and recognition is necessary from each friend, as far as feelings about one another and what the friendship involves. This is why Aristotle says we cannot be friends with wine, no matter how much we like it. Wine just doesn’t love us back. ( NE 1155b27-31). But beyond these generalities, philosophers disagree.

Julia Annas, for example, offers her own interpretation of qualities Aristotle seems to endorse as belonging to all forms of friendship: (1) friends wish and do good for each other, (2) friends want their friends to stay alive for their own sake, (3) friends spend time with each other, (4) friends make similar choices, and (5) friends find similar things painful and pleasant. 1993, p. 254. Martha Nussbaum proposes that all friendships involve mutual affection, mutual separateness and respect for that independence, mutual well-wishing for the friend and for that friend’s own sake, and mutual awareness of the good feelings and wishes. 2009, p. 355.

In addition to deciding what is common in all forms of friendships, philosophers argue over what distinguishes the different types. For example, philosophers argue over the kind of affection and interest that friends take in each other in useful, pleasurable, and virtuous friendships. There is no doubt that virtuous friends are interested in their friends being good and doing well for their own sake. But philosophers disagree about whether such disinterested or non-self-interested motivation exists in useful or pleasurable friendships. John Cooper (1999a), for example, takes the position that all friendships involve a not-completely-self-interested motivation. But Kenneth Alpern (1983) thinks that useful and pleasurable friendships are not disinterested, even if they exhibit dependence, cooperation, trust, communion, and sharing. Aristotle is borderline incoherent on this point, sometimes writing that useful and pleasurable friends are self-centered, sometimes implying that all friendships share disinterested other-regarding concern. See: Cooper 1999a, p. 317.

[5] Aristotle, NE , VIII.3.

[6] Julia Annas summarizes Aristotle’s arguments for why virtuous friendships are necessary for living a good life. She identifies two reasons that are important to highlight. First, friends help you to learn about yourself. Virtuous friends share values, so their perspectives on each others’ lives are important. And because friends are outside of your life, they have an outside perspective that allows for accurate assessment. (Sometimes your friends know you better than you know yourself.) Second, friends can do more together than separately. When friends work together, they can sustain activities for a longer time, make activities much more pleasant, and make activities much more effective. 1993, p. 251.

[7] Aristotle, NE , 1170b11-14. In this passage, Aristotle emphasizes that friends share conversation and thought while living together. Sharing a human life together means more than “feeding in the same location as with grazing animals.” So, the quality of the shared time and the content of the actions matter, not just the hours logged. On the point of sharing the same values, see also: Rhet . II.4. Thanks go to Alexis Elder for emphasizing this point in her work.

[8] Aristotle, NE , VIII.3, 13; IX.5–6. See also: Diogenes Laertius (2018), V.31.

[9] For the “other selves” claim, see: Aristotle, NE , 1166a31. For the “One soul dwelling in two bodies,” see: Diogenes Laertius (2018), V.20. Aristotle argues that the deepest friendships are those between equals, in almost all respects. This is part of what makes virtuous friends “other selves.” For the most part, virtuous friends have the same values, the same strategies in approaching life, and maybe a lot of other similarities, such as economic class and political status. This means that when virtuous friends see each other living life, they understand what they’re doing and why, and they can counsel each other well. Additionally, because friends would do basically the same things as each other, they get to live somewhat vicariously. Aristotle’s works are rarely beautiful or poetic. But the phrasing of friends being “other selves” has inspired admiration of the phrase, leading to much philosophical reflection.

[10] See: Aristotle, NE , IX.11. On bitter times in friendship, Aristotle wrote, “[F]or as the proverb has it, people cannot have got to know each other before they have savored all that salt together, nor indeed can they have accepted each other to be friends before each party is seen to be lovable, and is trusted, by the other. Those who are quick to behave like friends towards each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they are also lovable, and the other party knows it; for what is quick to arise is wish for friendship, not friendship” (2002, NE , 1156b27-33). In other words, friends need to spend a lot of time together to get to know each other, which would include difficult times. This reveals how good a person is (so how loveable they are) and how deep the friendship is. Good people and good friendships endure the bad times; they go beyond mere well wishes.

It is also worth noting that Aristotle thought you could not be good friends with many people at once ( NE , 1158a11-2). Diogenes Laertius took this claim to an extreme when he reported that Aristotle said, “He who has friends has no true friend” (2018, V.21). In other words, having more than one serious friend means you are not serious friends with any one person. Diogenes Laertius, however, reports this hundreds of years after Aristotle died.

[11] For an overview of recent scholarship on friendship, see: Helm 2021 and Jeske 2023.

[12] This case is based on the film Death in Brunswick (1990), which is the primary example for Dean Cocking and Jeanette Kennett in their influential article “Friendship and Moral Danger” (2000).

[13] See: Aristotle, NE , IX.9-10; Elder 2013.

There is an added complication here that many philosophers do not address. Aristotle seems OK with friends being vulnerable around each other and doing things around each other that might not be proper in public. Friends feel comfortable around each other and trust one another, and sometimes they confide their own weaknesses in friends. So, the requirement that virtuous friends be good has small exceptions and doesn’t require moral perfection. See: Rhet . II.4.

Aristotle’s theory of friendship has political implications too. For Aristotle, humans are fundamentally political, in that they live in communities. And he argues that a community of good people who are friends with one another wouldn’t need justice or rules. People would inherently share things with one another and treat each other fairly. Inversely, Aristotle also argues that friendship is impossible under conditions of severe injustice. NE , VIII.1, 9, 11. See also: Cooper 1999b, p. 356. It is important to qualify this claim, however. Aristotle’s work on friendship seems only to extend to actual, day-to-day relationships, and not to people we don’t have relationships with, as in people living in distant communities. See: Annas 1993, p. 253. It is not really until the Cynics and Stoics that philosophers develop a sense of cosmopolitanism. For a discussion of cosmopolitanism, see: Moles 1996.

[14] See: Cocking and Kennett 2000.

[15] Aristotle, NE , IX.12. Thanks go out to Nathan Nobis, Dan Lowe, Chelsea Haramia, Kristin Seemuth Whaley, Spencer Case, and Felipe Pereira for their feedback. They improved the paper significantly.

Annas, Julia. (1993) The Morality of Happiness . New York: Oxford.

Alpern, Kenneth D. (1983) “Aristotle on the Friendships of Utility and Pleasure,” Journal of the History of Philosophy , vol. 21, no. 3: pp. 303-15.

Aristotle. (1991) Rhetoric [ Rhet .]. Trans. W. Rhys. Roberts. In: The Complete Works of Aristotle , Vol. 2, ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton.

Aristotle. (2002) Nicomachean Ethics [ NE ]. Trans. Christopher Rowe. Oxford: Oxford.

Cherry, Myisha. (2021). “On the Cultivation of Civic Friendship,” Journal of Philosophical Research , vol. 46: pp. 193-207.

Cocking, Dean and Jeanette Kennett. (2000) “Friendship and Moral Danger,” The Journal of Philosophy , vol. 97, no. 5: 278-96.

Cooper, John M. (1999a) “Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship.” In: Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory . Princeton: Princeton, ch. 14.

Cooper, John M. (1999b) “Political Animals and Civic Friendship.” In: Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory . Princeton: Princeton, ch. 16.

Diogenes Laertius. (2018) Lives of the Eminent Philosophers . Trans. Pamela Mensch. Oxford: Oxford.

Death in Brunswick . (1990) Dir. John Ruane.

El Murr, Dimitri. (2020) “Friendship in Early Greek Ethics.” In: Early Greek Ethics , ed. David Conan Wolfsdorf. Oxford: Oxford. Ch. 24.

Elder, Alexis. (2013) “Why Bad People Can’t Be Good Friends,” Ratio , vol. 27, iss. 1: 84-99.

Elder, Alexis. (2018) Friendship, Robots, and Social Media: False Friends and Second Selves . New York: Routledge.

Helm, Bennett. (2021) “Friendship,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : plato.stanford.edu.

Jeske, Diane. (2023) The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Friendship . New York: Routledge.

Moles, John L. (1996) “Cynic Cosmopolitanism.” In: The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy , eds. R. Bracht Branham and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé. Berkeley: California.

Nussbaum, Martha C. (2009) The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy . Updated Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge.

Pakaluk, Michael. (1991) Other Selves: Philosophers on Friendship . Indianapolis: Hackett.

Shields, Christopher. (2020) “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : plato.stanford.edu.

Trujillo, G.M. (2020) “Friendship for the Flawed: A Cynical and Pessimistic Theory of Friendship,” Southwest Philosophy Review , vol. 36, iss. 1: 199-209.

For Further Reading

Katz, Emily. (2023) “Three lessons from Aristotle on Friendship,” The Conversation .

Related Essays

Virtue Ethics by David Merry

Happiness by Kiki Berk

What Is It To Love Someone? By Felipe Pereira

(Im)partiality by Shane Gronholz

“Hell Is Other People”: Sartre on Personal Relationships by Kiki Berk

Meaning in Life: What Makes Our Lives Meaningful? By Matthew Pianalto

The Meaning of Life: What’s the Point? By Matthew Pianalto

Translation

Pdf download.

Download this essay in PDF. 

About the Author

G.M. Trujillo, Jr. is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso. He specializes in ethics, especially virtue ethics and bioethics. www.Boomert.info

Follow 1000-Word Philosophy on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to receive email notifications of new essays at 1000WordPhilosophy.com

Share this:, one thought on “ aristotle on friendship: what does it take to be a good friend ”.

• Pingback: Doing Philosophy Together: On the Value of Philosophical Collaboration | Skeptic Society Magazine

Comments are closed.

Discover more from 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Meet top uk universities from the comfort of your home, here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

• School Education /

Essay on Friendship: Samples in 100, 200, 300 Words

• Updated on  
• Sep 14, 2023

Friendship is a lovely connection that thrives on pure love and care, free from demands. It’s recognized through respect, support, open communication, shared joys, empathy, and unwavering presence. True friends cherish and express this bond in countless meaningful ways. Mentioned below are the essay on friendship that you can write in your school assignments to express gratitude towards them.

This Blog Includes:

Friendship sample essay in 100 words, friendship sample essay in 200 words, friendship sample essay in 300 words.

Everybody needs friends in their life because friends with friendship fill that gap of proper understanding that at some point even our family fails to meet. Whenever challenges come up in life, this friendship becomes a path to overcome those challenges and boosts us toward progress. In the dark and bleak world of reality, friendship fills vibrant and vivid colours of life, enthusiasm, and motivation. Every occasion becomes extra happy when celebrated with that special circle of friends. Every moment spent and lived with your friends, be it sad or happy, dull or motivating, shapes us into who we are. It also helps us see the good in life. 

Also Read- Essay on Waste Management

Friendship is something exceptional. Whenever life gets rough, one thing that we can always rely on is our friendship. We know that we have our friends to support us through the tough times in life. Not only that, friendship is such a deep-rooted emotion that even when we don’t share what we are feeling at the same moment, just by looking at our faces, our friends can figure out that something is bothering us. And they, just by having a thoughtful talk with us, have the strength to make all the bothering go away in a snap. Such is the power of friendship. It’s more than meets the eye. However, there are times when we have those life tests that make us reach our limits and test us through thick and thin. 

Everything in life isn’t always smooth and happy, there are phases when even friends get into a fight with each other, but when they come out of that situation with their friendship still intact, then that bonding reaches new heights of strength.

If you have deep friendships with people, always be grateful to god for that, because not every bond of friendship lasts forever. Those people who have friends who last a lifetime are truly blessed because friendship truly is beautiful.

Also Read: Essay on Badminton

In this vast world, there are innumerable people we meet every day, yet we still meet people who are there with us for a lifetime. The term for those people is “Friends” and the emotion that sustains them is “friendship”. The word friendship may have a particular number of alphabets, but the meaning it conveys cannot be measured in numbers. The word “friendship” is more than meets the eye. The depth it holds in terms of emotions, bonding, trust, understanding, support, communication, and much more is unparalleled. At every phase of our lives, we come across people and don’t even realize the bonds that get forged with time. These bonds are filled with the spirit and essence of trust, honesty, support, etc. hence becoming the pillars of friendship. 

In every person’s life, friendship plays different roles but one thing that every person can agree on without a doubt is that friendship sustains you. Now, there are basically 2 types of friends, first ones are those who are good friends while the other ones are best friends. The best friends are the ones that we share a special bond of affection and love with. They make our lives much richer and easier

In true friendship, there is no place for judgment. True friends can share anything they are feeling without the fear of being judged by the other. To put it simply, we can say that true friendship gives us a reason to become even stronger in life.

Friendship makes us stronger in all aspects. No matter how much we fight our friends, we always come back to them. This is what teaches us the virtue of understanding and being patient. Without an iota of doubt, we can conclude that there is nothing out there that is nearly as beautiful, and as strong as friendship. Lucky are those who have this blessing in their life. Forever cherish it. 

True friendship is one where there is mutual respect, good communication, honesty, and trust. When you know that no matter what, you can rely on your friend and that friend has got your back in every situation. 

The full form of “FRIEND” is” Few Relations In Earth Never Die”.

The word “friendship” is more than meets the eye. The depth it holds in terms of emotions, bonding, trust, understanding, support, communication, and much more is unparalleled. At every phase of our lives, we come across people and don’t even realize the bonds that get forged with time. The power of friendship is such that it can turn a dull day in any person’s life into a really happy one. Every moment spent and lived with your friends, be it sad or happy, dull or motivating, shapes us into who we are. If you have deep friendships with people, always be grateful to god for that, because not every bond of friendship lasts forever. Those people who have friends who last a lifetime are truly blessed because friendship truly is beautiful. 

Hence, we hope that this blog has assisted you in comprehending what an essay on friendship must include. If you are struggling with your career choices and need expert guidance, our Leverage Edu mentors are here to guide you at any point of your academic and professional journey thus ensuring that you take informed steps towards your dream career.

Deepansh Gautam

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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

Contact no. *

Connect With Us

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today.

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

January 2024

September 2024

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Have something on your mind?

Make your study abroad dream a reality in January 2022 with

India's Biggest Virtual University Fair

Essex Direct Admission Day

Why attend .

Don't Miss Out

Friendship Essay

500+ words essay on friendship.

Individuals come across numerous people throughout their life. Those who are near us become our companions. We may have a big group of companions in school and college, yet we realise that we can rely on only a few with whom we share genuine friendships. Here, we have provided an essay on friendship for students. By referring to this essay on friendship essay, students of Classes 5 to 8 can become familiar with essay writing skills. They can learn how to organise their thoughts in an effective way and put them in words. This essay will work as a sample for them. Practising Essays on different topics will enhance their writing skills and thus help them to score high marks in English exams.

We have different types of relationships with people around us. With a few of them, we share a blood bond, such as with our family and with others, we forge our own connections. Friendship is one such relationship which we choose by ourselves. God has given us this liberty to choose friends because they are, in most instances, for a lifetime. A friend is someone who is initially a stranger and then takes his/her place above all other relationships. Friendship is considered one of the treasures that anyone can have.

Friendship can exist between people, regardless of their age and gender. It can even happen between an old man and a small boy. Friendship can also exist between humans and their pet animals. Moreover, it can also be felt in familial relationships such as between father and son, mother and daughter etc. A simple bond of friendship can help uproot various prejudices and negative thoughts from society, such as religious conflict, violence, human rights abuse, poverty, illiteracy, etc. Friendship can generate passion among people to create a better world where all are united together.

Role of a Friend

Friends are an integral part of our life. To develop a strong, true friendship, we should treat friends with love and respect the way we would expect them to treat us. In this way, the friendship will last longer. Some of the ways that define the role of friendship in achieving success are:

• Encouraging and motivating
• Creating a comfort zone
• Listening to each other and providing truthful opinions
• Adding joy to life
• Sharing secrets and being reliable
• Caring and unconditional love
• Helping to grow individually

Best Qualities of a Good Friendship

There is a famous proverb, “A friend in need is a friend indeed”. It means that though we may have several friends at the time of prosperity, many desert us at the time of adversity. We can examine the sincerity of a friend during our hard times. Only a sincere and faithful friend remains with us in times of trouble. All others abandon us.

Friendship is established over the sacrifice, love, faith, and concern of each other. Below we have mentioned some qualities that exist in a good friendship:

• Honest and trustworthy
• Accepting and loyal
• Non-judgemental
• Inspiring and motivating
• Helpful and generous

Famous Examples of Friendship in Indian Mythology

In Indian Mythology, we can find various examples of true friendship. All of us have heard the story of Krishna and Sudama. Sudama was a poor brahmin. His condition became so impoverished that he could not afford food for his family. Then he decided to go to Dwarka to meet his childhood friend Krishna. When he reached Dwarka, he requested the gatekeeper to let him meet with Krishna. As he was dressed dirty, the gatekeeper did not allow him to enter. But, he requested several times and asked the gatekeeper to inform Krishna that his childhood friend was there to meet him. Finally, the gatekeeper showed mercy on him and sent the message to Krishna. On hearing the news of Sudama’s arrival, Krishna came running and welcomed him with an open heart. He also helped him financially by giving him plenty of wealth.

Similarly, there are various stories of friendship described in Indian Mythology. A few of them are the friendship of Karna and Duryodhana, Ram and Sugreeva, Krishna and Arjun.

Essays Topics for Students’ Practice

After writing an essay on friendship, students must practise essays on similar topics. To help them with this, we have provided a few essay topics as suggestions:

• Friendship Day Essay
• Essay on My Best Friend
• Essay on Memories of My Childhood Friends
• Essay on the Importance of True Friendship

Frequently Asked Questions on Friendship

Who is a true friend.

A true friend is one who stands for you and is always ready to help you. He/she understands you and values your feelings. Whose company makes you feel happy, and you can share your thoughts and emotions without any hesitation or fear?

Why do we need friends in our life?

Friends bring happiness into our life. They help in solving problems, whether personal or professional. By talking to them, our stress reduces, and we feel better. Friends improve our self-confidence and help us to find purpose in our life. They offer companionship and thus prevent loneliness.

When is Friendship Day celebrated?

Each year on the first Sunday of August, Friendship Day is celebrated in India.

This “Friendship Essay” must have helped students in improving their writing section for the English exam. Keep learning and stay tuned with BYJU’S for the latest update on CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive Exams. Also, download the BYJU’S App for interactive study videos.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your Mobile number and Email id will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Request OTP on Voice Call

Post My Comment

• Share Share

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Register with byju's & watch live videos.

Counselling

Essay on True Friendship

Students are often asked to write an essay on True 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 True Friendship

Introduction.

True friendship is a precious bond shared between individuals. It is a relationship built on trust, respect, and mutual affection. Friends are always there to support and encourage each other.

Qualities of True Friendship

In a true friendship, friends are honest with each other. They share joys, sorrows, and secrets without fear of judgment. They respect each other’s differences and celebrate their similarities.

The Value of True Friendship

True friendship enriches our lives. It provides a sense of belonging and emotional security. It helps us grow as individuals and learn important life lessons.

In conclusion, true friendship is a priceless treasure that should be cherished and nurtured. It is a source of joy, support, and personal growth.

Also check:

• Paragraph on True Friendship

250 Words Essay on True Friendship

The essence of true friendship.

True friendship is a profound human connection characterized by mutual respect, understanding, and unconditional support. It transcends superficial interactions, as it is rooted in shared experiences, empathy, and a genuine desire for the other’s wellbeing.

The Pillars of Friendship

The pillars of true friendship are trust, honesty, and loyalty. Trust is the bedrock, allowing friends to confide in each other without fear of judgment or betrayal. Honesty, on the other hand, ensures transparency, even when the truth is hard to bear. Loyalty solidifies the bond, ensuring that friends stand by each other in times of adversity.

Friendship and Personal Growth

True friendship fosters personal growth. Friends challenge each other, encourage personal development, and stimulate intellectual growth. They serve as mirrors, reflecting our strengths and weaknesses, thereby helping us understand ourselves better.

The Test of Time

The test of time is a definitive measure of true friendship. As life evolves, circumstances change, and people grow, only those friendships that adapt and grow with these changes stand the test of time. They are not threatened by distance or time apart; instead, they are strengthened by these challenges.

In conclusion, true friendship is a unique bond that enriches our lives. It is a testament to the human capacity for empathy, understanding, and unconditional love. The value of such a relationship is immeasurable, making it one of life’s most cherished treasures.

500 Words Essay on True Friendship

A true friendship is a connection that transcends the boundaries of self, creating a bond that is both profound and essential. It is a relationship that is not based on any superficiality but on mutual respect, understanding, and shared values. This essay delves into the essence of true friendship, its importance, and how it shapes our lives.

True friendship is not merely about spending time together or enjoying shared interests. It’s about a deep emotional connection, a sense of trust, and mutual respect. It’s about being there for each other, in good times and bad, without any expectations or judgments. It’s about understanding each other’s silences as much as words, and valuing each other’s individuality while fostering growth.

The Importance of True Friendship

True friendship plays a vital role in shaping our lives. It provides emotional support, helping us navigate through life’s ups and downs. It fosters personal growth by challenging our perspectives, encouraging us to step out of our comfort zones, and promoting self-improvement. Moreover, a true friend can be a mirror, reflecting our strengths and weaknesses without any bias, thus helping us grow as individuals.

True Friendship and Personal Growth

The value of true friendship in personal growth cannot be overstated. A true friend acts as a sounding board for our thoughts and ideas, providing constructive feedback and offering different perspectives. They push us to be better versions of ourselves, not by imposing their views, but by encouraging us to introspect and evolve. They celebrate our successes and help us learn from our failures, thus playing an instrumental role in our personal development.

The Challenges of True Friendship

Despite its manifold benefits, true friendship requires effort and commitment. It necessitates open communication, understanding, and empathy. It demands the ability to forgive, to compromise, and to accept each other’s flaws. The challenges of maintaining a true friendship can be daunting, but the rewards it brings are invaluable.

In conclusion, true friendship is a priceless treasure that enriches our lives in myriad ways. It is a bond that nurtures our emotional wellbeing, promotes personal growth, and adds meaning to our lives. While it does pose challenges, the effort invested in cultivating and maintaining a true friendship is well worth the rewards it yields. True friendship, thus, is not just about companionship; it’s about growing together, learning together, and building a bond that stands the test of time.

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

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

• Essay on Value of Friendship
• Essay on A Visit to a Flower Exhibition
• Essay on Sunflower

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.

Definition Paragraph about a Friend

There is no definite definition of a friend but each person has his or her own perspective of who a friend is. This paper will try and come up with a consolidated definition of a friend and at the same time highlight some of the things that a friend is expected to do. A friend is a person who loves you unconditionally and can be there for you in good and bad times. A friend should make you become better by believing in your abilities and at the same time help you to deal with your weaknesses.

A friend is a clear reflection of yourself and will not hesitate to tell you the truth. A good friend should be honest and loyal to you. A friend can only prove that he or she cares for you by sharing some time with you. A person who loves you for who you are without any prejudice is a true friend. It is important to note that a person who can not be trusted and is always judging you can not be referred to as a friend.

There is need for a friend to encourage you when you feel discouraged. There is no way a person can claim to be your friend if he or she does not respect you. Friends should be with you out of choice and not because they have been forced to do so. Many people can claim to be your friends but a large number of them will always disappear when things are not good.

A true friend is the one who sticks by you when things are not good. A friend is that person whom you enjoy their company at all times. A friend makes you smile and is always willing to listen when you have something to share. Genuine solidarity in times of trouble is a good indicator of who a true friend is. It is important to highlight some of the qualities of a true friend in detail for us to have an in-depth understanding of the actual meaning of a friend.

It is important to have a friend who is always willing to listen to you. A friend should understand things from your point of view without judgment. A friend should feel some empathy when listening to you even if he or she does not have the solution to your problems. A friend can not be helpful to you if he or she does not care about what you need.

This is very important during tough times when a person may not have the courage to ask for help. A true friend will always be there for you by helping you get what you need. Hugs and smiles are some of the physical signs of a true friend that cares for you.

Friends will try their best to maintain contact with you even if they are away. A friend will always try to keep in touch through calling, texting and social media when he or she is not nearby. Every human being desires other people to say good things about them and a friend should be able to do that without making a big deal out of it. It is important for a friend to get all the facts right before coming in to support you. It is only a true friend who will come out to save you from a dangerous situation without caring about their safety.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 30). Definition Paragraph about a Friend. https://ivypanda.com/essays/definition-paragraph-about-a-friend/

"Definition Paragraph about a Friend." IvyPanda , 30 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/definition-paragraph-about-a-friend/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Definition Paragraph about a Friend'. 30 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Definition Paragraph about a Friend." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/definition-paragraph-about-a-friend/.

1. IvyPanda . "Definition Paragraph about a Friend." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/definition-paragraph-about-a-friend/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Definition Paragraph about a Friend." October 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/definition-paragraph-about-a-friend/.

• Things Fall Apart: Collage of Ideas and Main Themes
• Professional Sports Governance Issue
• The Various Aspects of Genetic Research
• Wood Hockey Sticks vs. Composite Sticks: Safety and Quality
• Addressing Marine Debris: Causes, Effects, and Potential Solutions
• Communication Challenges and Effects
• Is There Such a Thing as Impressionism in Music?
• Riordan Manufacturing Company Internal and External Environment
• Texting's Importance for the Society
• Texting as a Valuable Way of Communication
• History of Body Modifications
• How to Be a Good Person Essay
• To Push or Not To Push
• The Thread of History
• People are forced and pressured