'Friendship, like very kind of love, requires more than an appreciation of what we already know our friends to be. It also makes, as I said, a commitment to the future. Saying "You are my friend" or, more generally, "I love you," it is not only an expression of how I feel at the present moment. It is also, and crucially, a promise that my feelings will last longer than this present moment and an expression of my sense that our place in each other's life will in some way make life for both of us better than it would be otherwise. Our friendship reflects not only what we already found attractive about each other (think how little we may know about each other some people when we make such a commitment) but also on the sense that other things about us, things we don't know yet - even things that may come into existence only because of our friendship - will seem attractive to us as we come to know each other better: "Love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another."'
Alexander Nehamas, On Friendship, p.134.
