Again, it is thought that the happy man’s life must be pleasant. Now, if he is solitary, life is hard for him; for it is very difficult to be continuously active by one’s self, but not so difficult along with others, and in relation to others. With friends, then, the exercise of his faculties will be more continuous, being pleasant in itself. And this is what ought to be the case with the blessed man; for the good man, as such, delights in acts of virtue and is vexed by acts of vice, just as a musician is pleased by good music and pained by bad.

Again, he would get a sort of practice in virtue by living with good men, as Theognis says. 240

But if we look a little deeper into the nature of things, a good friend appears to be naturally desirable to the good man:⁠—

What is naturally good, we have already said, is good and pleasant in itself to the good man.