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on February 4, 2021February 4, 2021 By Olavo de Carvalho

“St. Thomas Aquinas defined friendship in the following terms: idem velle, et idem nolle, that is, your friend is the person who wants the same things you want and rejects the same things you reject. If you cannot find a group that identifies with your objectives and values, you will obviously be isolated among other people, who will be either strange or hostile to you. (…) Aristotle considered friendship to be the basis of a polity. Friendship is not a “political” phenomenon in the sense that we currently understand politics; but nevertheless, if there were no human tendency to form groups united through friendship, through the commonality of objectives and values, no political society would ever be possible. Friendship is also one of the pillars upon which our personality is built. If you do not find adequate friends, who share values with you, you will end up associating yourself with other groups, which will offer you support and friendship in exchange for your own corruption, your relinquishing your own values and making useless and abject sacrifices before the altar of a false friendship.” — Olavo de Carvalho, Philosophy Online Course, Lecture 1.