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Some say that they who are blessed and independent have no need

of Friends, for they already have all that is good, and so, as

being independent, want nothing further: whereas the notion of a

friend's office is to be as it were a second Self and procure for

a man what he cannot get by himself: hence the saying,

"When Fortune gives us good, what need we Friends?"

On the other hand, it looks absurd, while we are assigning to the

Happy man all other good things, not to give him Friends, which

are, after all, thought to be the greatest of external goods.