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Who really said it

A true friend is, as it were, a second self

Written by Marcus Tullius Cicero 106–43 BC · Roman statesman, orator & philosopher
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Cicero writes it in his dialogue Laelius de Amicitia (“On Friendship,” 44 BC), §80: a true friend is “tamquam alter idem” — “as it were, a second self.” The popular English is a faithful, lightly condensed rendering of that line (cf. E. S. Shuckburgh’s 1885 translation).

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“A true friend is, as it were, a second self” Marcus Tullius Cicero, Laelius de Amicitia (On Friendship), 44 BC, §80 ("tamquam alter idem")

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Provenance

The source

Work
Laelius de Amicitia (“On Friendship”)
Author & date
Marcus Tullius Cicero, 44 BC
Locus
§80 — “est enim is qui est tamquam alter idem”
Translation
E. S. Shuckburgh, 1885 (public domain)

“For the man who keeps his eye on a true friend, keeps it, so to speak, on a model of himself. For this reason friends are together when they are separated, they are rich when they are poor, strong when they are weak, and — a thing even harder to explain — they live on after they have died… unless this feeling of love were reciprocated, a true friend would never be found; for a true friend is, as it were, a second self.” On Friendship, §80

Composite of Shuckburgh’s 1885 rendering around §80; Cicero’s Latin for the closing clause is “est enim is qui est tamquam alter idem.”

Cicero, On Friendship (Shuckburgh trans.), full text

How we traced it

Public domain

Cicero’s Latin (44 BC) is long in the public domain, and the standard English rendering by E. S. Shuckburgh dates to 1885 — well before 1931 — so the wording shown here carries no live copyright.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Fact-check

Who else gets the credit?

The line is authentically Cicero’s, but its history has two honest complications worth flagging.

Aristotle origin

The concept of a friend as “another self” (Ἑτερος αὐτός) is Aristotle’s, stated in the Nicomachean Ethics, 1166a ↗, roughly three centuries before Cicero. Cicero gave it the Latin phrasing (alter idem) the English quote translates.

Cicero, but as a bare quote-card unsourced

Quote sites almost never cite the work: it is pinned to Cicero’s name with no locus (e.g. BrainyQuote ↗). The real home is De Amicitia §80, and the popular English is a condensed paraphrase rather than any one verbatim edition.

The verdict: genuinely Cicero, from De Amicitia §80 ↗ — a Latin echo of Aristotle’s older “another self.”

Context

Why it endures

Cicero’s De Amicitia was one of the most widely read texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, which is how “a second self” became the standard way to describe a true friend in European languages. The Latin alter idem and its cousin alter ego both flow from this tradition.

The paradox Cicero packs into two words — a friend who is at once other (alter) and identical (idem) — is exactly what has kept the line quotable for two millennia.

A friend is “other” and “the same” at once — alter idem.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Friendship Love

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

De Amicitia §80 — Latin & English (Perseus)perseus.tufts.edu

The primary Latin locus, “tamquam alter idem,” with Falconer’s Loeb text.
Cicero, On Friendship (Shuckburgh 1885, full text)monadnock.net

Public-domain English translation rendering the friend as “a second self.”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1166aperseus.tufts.edu

The older source of the idea: a friend as “another self.”
De Amicitia — Loeb Classical Library editionloebclassics.com

Falconer’s facing Latin/English scholarly edition of the dialogue.
Cicero — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Background on the author and his philosophical works.

The author

Who was Cicero?

Marcus Tullius Cicero

106–43 BC · Roman statesman, orator & philosopher

Cicero was Rome’s greatest orator and a prolific philosopher who naturalized Greek thought in Latin. His late dialogue Laelius de Amicitia (44 BC) puts a meditation on friendship in the mouth of Gaius Laelius, and gave Latin the enduring formula for a friend as alter idem — “a second self.” Much of the West’s vocabulary for friendship descends from this text.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Laelius de Amicitia [44 BC], §80 (“tamquam alter idem”). Trans. E. S. Shuckburgh, in The Treatises of Cicero (London, 1885). Latin text: W. A. Falconer, ed., Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press, 1923).

MLA (9th ed.)

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. “Laelius de Amicitia.” The Treatises of Cicero, translated by E. S. Shuckburgh, 1885, sec. 80.

APA (7th ed.)

Cicero, M. T. (1885). The treatises of Cicero (E. S. Shuckburgh, Trans.). (Original work published 44 BCE)

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘A true friend is, as it were, a second self’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/a-true-friend-is-as-it-were-a-second-self

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