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Friendship is love with the selfish element eliminated.
Friendship is a matter of loving ... not of being loved. It is out-going and on-going affection. The best and most important attribute in any relationship is genuine friendship. Too often, we want friends for what they can do for us; because they are fun to be with; because they make us feel good, support us, and affirm us. However, the test of true friendship and love is, being a friend to another, even if we derived little benefit from them. It's not what we get, but what we give that makes us friends. Friendship consists in being a friend, not in having a friend. The key to true friendship is giving one's affection unselfishly and unswervingly to another.
Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down one's own life for one's friends.. John 15:9-17
