The Latin word for friendship--amicitia--is derived from that for love--amor; and love is certainly the prime mover in contracting mutual affection.
Cicero: “The Latin word for friendship--amicitia--is derived from that for love--amor; and love is certainly the prime mover in…”
Editor's note · Context
In a treatise on friendship, this passage explains the etymological link between love and friendship, asserting love as the foundational element of mutual affection.
Share
More from Cicero
For nothing is more commendable, nothing more becoming in a pre-eminently great man than courtesy and forbearance.
It is, therefore, an excellent rule that they give who bid us not to do a thing, when there is a doubt whether it be right or wrong; for righteousness shines with a brilliance of its own, but doubt is a sign that we are thinking of a…
For we are all attracted and drawn to a zeal for learning and knowing; and we think it glorious to excel therein, while we count it base and immoral to fall into error, to wander from the truth, to be ignorant, to be led astray.
But while they steer clear of the one kind of injustice, they fall into the other: they are traitors to social life, for they contribute to it none of their interest, none of their effort, none of their means.





