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Who really said it

For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods

Written by Aristotle 384–322 BC · Greek philosopher
Verified Free to reuse in the US

This is the real opening move of Book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics (Bekker 1155a), where Aristotle turns from virtue to friendship. The exact English you see quoted is W. D. Ross’s 1925 Oxford translation — the thought and the argument are Aristotle’s Greek, but these particular English words are Ross’s.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, ch. 1 (1155a), translated by W. D. Ross (Oxford University Press, 1925). Verified at quotle.info

Can you use it?

Free to use in the US, including commercially — the Ross translation is US public domain (published 1925). Outside the US, Ross’s English may still be in copyright (he died in 1971); the Greek original is free everywhere.

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In context

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Provenance

Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, chapter 1

Work
Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, ch. 1 (Bekker 1155a)
Composed
4th century BC
Translation
W. D. Ross, in The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, vol. IX (Oxford University Press, 1925)
Greek
ἄνευ γὰρ φίλων οὐδεὶς ἕλοιτ᾽ ἂν ζῆν, ἔχων τὰ λοιπὰ ἀγαθὰ πάντα

After what we have said, a discussion of friendship would naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue, and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need friends most of all; for what is the use of such prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence, which is exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards friends? Book VIII opens here

The famous line is not a standalone aphorism — it is the second sentence of an argument, and Aristotle immediately presses it hardest against the people who look least likely to need friends: the rich and the powerful. Text as given in the Ross translation on Wikisource ↗.

Nicomachean Ethics (Ross), Book Eight, on Wikisource

The trail

  • The Greek. The line sits at Bekker 1155a in Book 8, chapter 1: “ἄνευ γὰρ φίλων οὐδεὶς ἕλοιτ᾽ ἂν ζῆν, ἔχων τὰ λοιπὰ ἀγαθὰ πάντα” — set out alongside a run of English renderings at WIST Quotations ↗.
  • The English everyone quotes. W. D. Ross’s translation reads “For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods” — word for word the popular version, as carried on Wikisource ↗ and in the Internet Classics Archive ↗, which credits its text to Ross.
  • Listed as sourced. Wikiquote carries the line in its Nicomachean Ethics Book VIII section, cited to 1155a — not among its Misattributed or Disputed entries: Wikiquote: Aristotle ↗.
  • Other translators, other words. H. Rackham’s Loeb version (Harvard University Press, 1934) renders the same Greek as “no one would choose to live without friends, but possessing all other good things” — see Perseus Digital Library ↗.
Public domain

The Greek original has been out of copyright for millennia, but rights here turn on the translation. This exact English wording is W. D. Ross’s, first published in 1925 in volume IX of The Works of Aristotle Translated into English (Oxford University Press) — before 1 January 1931, so it is public domain in the United States, as Wikisource states explicitly ↗. That status does not extend to later renderings: Rackham’s 1934 Loeb and modern translations are separate, later works.

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.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The wording is a translator’s, not Aristotle’s

Nobody stole this one — the attribution to Aristotle is correct. What gets quietly dropped is that Aristotle wrote in Greek, and the sentence that circulates as his is one particular Englishman’s 1925 phrasing.

W. D. Ross (translator, 1925) translation

Every aggregator prints this sentence under Aristotle’s name with no translator credit. The words are Ross’s, published in volume IX of The Works of Aristotle Translated into English — Oxford University Press, 1925 ↗.

H. Rackham, D. P. Chase and others variant

The same Greek supports very different English. Rackham’s Loeb (1934) has “no one would choose to live without friends, but possessing all other good things” (Perseus ↗); D. P. Chase’s 1847 version runs “no one would choose to live without friends though he should have all the other good things in the world” (translation comparison at WIST ↗). A version that does not match Ross is not wrong — it is a different translator.

Quote aggregators clipped

The line is usually printed without its opening “For”, severing it from the sentence it answers, and always without the clause that follows — Aristotle’s point that the rich and powerful need friends most. The full passage is on Wikisource ↗.

Diogenes Laërtius third-hand

The other famous Aristotle-on-friendship line — “a friend is one soul abiding in two bodies” — is a different case entirely: it survives only in Diogenes Laërtius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (p. 188 in the Yonge translation, where Wikiquote ↗ files it), a compilation written some five centuries after Aristotle — not in any surviving work of Aristotle’s own.

The thought is Aristotle’s, and it is exactly where people say it is — Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, chapter 1 (1155a). The sentence, in the form the internet loves, is W. D. Ross’s 1925 English ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

Aristotle had just spent seven books building an argument about virtue and the good life. Then he does something odd for a moral philosopher: he devotes two entire books — roughly a fifth of the Nicomachean Ethics — to friendship. This sentence is the hinge, and it is deliberately extreme. Not “friends make life better,” but that a life containing every other good and no friends is one nobody would pick.

The clever part is who he aims at next. The obvious objection is that the rich and powerful can buy company and hardly need friends; Aristotle turns that straight around, arguing they need friends most of all, because what else is prosperity for? That move is what keeps the line from being a greetings-card sentiment.

Not “friends make life better” — that no one would choose the life at all.

Read the full story

Aristotle goes on in Book VIII to divide friendship into three kinds — based on utility, on pleasure, and on virtue — and argues that only the third is friendship in the full sense, because it survives once the usefulness and the pleasure run out.

For the record, this is one Aristotle line you can quote safely. He is among the internet’s most abused names, and much of what circulates under it is later paraphrase or second-hand report. This one is in the text, at a citable Bekker number.

Explore

Filed under

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

Friendship Happiness Purpose

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.

Nicomachean Ethics, Ross translation (full text)en.wikisource.org

Transcribed from the 1925 Oxford edition, with the explicit US public-domain statement for the translation.
Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIIIclassics.mit.edu

The Internet Classics Archive text of Book VIII, credited to W. D. Ross — a long-standing free web copy of the translation the popular wording comes from.
Aristotle — sourced and disputed quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Lists this line under sourced Nicomachean Ethics Book VIII at 1155a, and separates out the Disputed and Misattributed Aristotle lines.
Nicomachean Ethics 1155a (Rackham, Loeb 1934)perseus.tufts.edu

A second, quite differently worded English translation of the same Bekker line — useful for seeing how much of the famous phrasing is Ross’s.
Translations of 1155a, side by sidewist.info

The Greek original plus renderings from Chase (1847) onward, with the Bekker citation.
The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (Chase translation)gutenberg.org

Free full text of the older D. P. Chase translation, originally 1847 — the Victorian phrasing this passage had before Ross.

The author

Who was Aristotle?

Aristotle

384–322 BC · Greek philosopher, founder of the Lyceum

Aristotle studied for two decades under Plato in Athens, tutored the young Alexander the Great, and then founded his own school, the Lyceum. His surviving works — largely lecture material rather than polished books — range across logic, physics, biology, poetics, politics and ethics, and shaped European and Islamic thought for the better part of two thousand years. The Nicomachean Ethics, named for the Nicomachus in Aristotle’s family — usually taken to be his son — is his central account of how a human life goes well, and it gives more room to friendship than to almost any single virtue.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, ch. 1 (Bekker 1155a). In The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, vol. IX, Ethica Nicomachea, translated by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925.

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