Love is the center of a circle that broadens out in ever-widening circumference.

Dante tells us in La Vita Nuova that the effect of his love for Beatrice was to open his heart to all and to sweeten all his life. He speaks of the surpassing virtue of her very salutation to him in the street. “When she appeared in any place, it seemed to me, by the hope of her excellent salutation, that there was no man mine enemy any longer; and such warmth of charity came upon me that most certainly in that moment I would have pardoned whomsoever had done me an injury; and if anyone should then have questioned me concerning any matter, I could only have said unto him ‘Love,’ with a countenance clothed in humbleness.” His love bred sweetness in his mind and took in everything within the blessed sweep of its range.

The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black