Epicurus insisted emphatically on the value of friendship, as a means of happiness to both the persons so united.

He declared that a good friend was another self, and that friends ought to be prepared, in case of need, to die for each other.

Yet he declined to recommend an established community of goods among the members of his fraternity, as prevailed in the Pythagorean brotherhood: for such an institution (he said) implied mistrust.

He recommended efforts to please and to serve, and a forwardness to give, for the purpose of gaining and benefiting a friend, and he even declared that there was more pleasure in conferring favours than in receiving them; but he was no less strenuous in inculcating an intelligent gratitude on the receiver.

No one except a wise man (he said) knew how to return a favour properly.[16] Virtue and happiness, in the theory of Epicurus, were thus inseparable.
A man could not be happy until he had surmounted the fear of death and the fear of gods instilled by the current fables, which disturbed all tranquillity of mind; until he had banished those factitious desires that pushed him into contention for wealth, power, or celebrity; nor unless he behaved with justice to all, and with active devoted friendship towards a few.