Friendship improves Happiness and abates Misery, by the doubling of our Joy and dividing of our Grief.
Paraphrase
Not in these words. The idea is in On Friendship (44 BC), Chapter VI, section 22 (Laelius de Amicitia 6.22), said by Gaius Laelius.
The real passage, shown below, is found word for word by program in the Latin original and in E. S. Shuckburgh’s English translation.
- Work
- On Friendship (Laelius de Amicitia), 44 BC
- The real passage
- Chapter VI, section 22 (Laelius de Amicitia 6.22)
- Said by
- Gaius Laelius
Researched by AI; closest passage located by program on 31 October 2026. Entry updated 27 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
The real passage
[…] Such men as these are good enough for everyday life; and we need not trouble ourselves about those ideal characters which are nowhere to be met with.
[21] Iam virtutem ex consuetudine vitae sermonisque nostri interpretemur nec eam, ut quidam docti, verborum magnificentia metiamur virosque bonos eos, qui habentur, numeremus, Paulos, Catones, Galos, Scipiones, Philos; his communis vita contenta est; eos autem omittamus, qui omnino nusquam reperiuntur.
[…] Fire and water themselves, to use a common expression, are not of more universal use than friendship. I am not now speaking of the common or modified form of it, though even that is a source of pleasure and profit, but of that true and complete friendship which existed between the select few who are known to fame. Such friendship enhances prosperity, and relieves adversity of its burden by halving and sharing it.1
[…] Neque ego nunc de vulgari aut de mediocri, quae tamen ipsa et delectat et prodest, sed de vera et perfecta loquor, qualis eorum qui pauci nominantur fuit. Nam et secundas res splendidiores facit amicitia et adversas partiens communicansque leviores.
7. And great and numerous as are the blessings of friendship, this certainly is the sovereign one, that it gives us bright hopes for the future and forbids weakness and despair. […]
[23] Cumque plurimas et maximas commoditates amicitia contineat, tum illa nimirum praestat omnibus, quod bonam spem praelucet in posterum nec debilitari animos aut cadere patitur. […]
They say that a certain philosopher of Agrigentum, in a Greek poem, pronounced with the authority of an oracle the doctrine that whatever in nature and the universe was unchangeable was so in virtue of the binding force of friendship; whatever was changeable was so by the solvent power of discord. […]
[24] Agrigentinum quidem doctum quendam virum carminibus Graecis vaticinatum ferunt, quae in rerum natura totoque mundo constarent quaeque moverentur, ea contrahere amicitiam, dissipare discordiam. […]
How the shared form came about
The underlying sentence is Cicero’s Laelius de Amicitia 22. The English wording about improving happiness by doubling joy is directly attested in Joseph Addison’s Spectator no. 68, 18 May 1711, where Addison introduces the thought as an observation by Tully (Cicero). It is a later English summary, not the wording of Shuckburgh’s translation or an exact quotation of Cicero in English. This run did not establish that Addison was the first English writer to use it.
How it travelled
- 18 May 1711Earliest found · credited to Tully (Cicero), as summarised by Joseph AddisonAddison summarises Tully’s observation in The Spectator; this is the earliest English appearance directly checked in this run, not a claim of first coinage.
Friendship improves Happiness and abates Misery, by the doubling of our Joy and dividing of our Grief.
Joseph Addison, The Spectator, no. 68, Friday, 18 May 1711; in The Spectator, Volume 1, edited by Henry Morley (Project Gutenberg eBook 9334). Checked in a full-text transcription. Source
In context
Laelius is explaining what friendship contributes to a good life, after distinguishing it from money, office, bodily pleasure and health. He moves from the joy of confiding in a friend to sharing good fortune and misfortune, and limits the strongest claim to true and complete friendship. The English passage is E. S. Shuckburgh’s public-domain translation.
What it says
A friend makes good fortune more joyful and makes adversity easier to bear by sharing its burden.
Often misread
The familiar English sentence is often treated as Cicero’s exact words. Cite it as Addison summarising Cicero, or use the source passage with the translator named; Laelius, not Cicero speaking in his own person, delivers the argument.
Topics
Related quotes
- The fact is that fewer people are endowed with virtue than wish to be thought to be so.
- For a short term of life is long enough for living well and honourably.
- Man is fond of reckoning up his troubles, but does not count his joys. Fyodor Dostoevsky
- We are troubled more often by opinion than by fact. Seneca the Younger
- You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand. Stephen Chbosky
Sources
Cite it
“Friendship improves Happiness and abates Misery, by the doubling of our Joy and dividing of our Grief.” Attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero. Not in these words. The idea is in On Friendship (44 BC), Chapter VI, section 22 (Laelius de Amicitia 6.22), said by Gaius Laelius. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/friendship-improves-happiness-and-abates-misery/ (checked 27 October 2026).
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