Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Antisthenes was the son of Antisthenes, an Athenian. It was said, however, that he was not of pure Athenian blood; hence, to someone who was reviling him on this account, he said, "Even the mother of the gods is Phrygian." For he was reputed to be born of a Thracian mother; hence, when he distinguished himself in the battle at Tanagra, he gave Socrates occasion to say that from two Athenians he would not have turned out so noble. And he himself, slighting the Athenians who took pride in being earth-born, used to say that they were in no way more noble than snails and locusts. At first he attended the lectures of Gorgias the rhetorician; whence he introduces the rhetorical style into his dialogues, especially in The Truth and the Exhortations.

​Hermippus says that he purposed at the assembly of the Isthmian games to censure and praise the Athenians, the Thebans, and the Lacedaemonians; but then excused himself when he saw that a great number of people had arrived from those cities. Later, however, he attached himself to Socrates, and derived so much profit from him that he advised his own pupils to become his fellow-disciples under Socrates. Living in Piraeus, he walked up the forty stades every day to listen to Socrates; and having acquired from him endurance and having emulated his freedom from passion, he was the first to inaugurate Cynicism. And he established that labor is a good by citing the great Heracles and Cyrus, drawing the one from the Greeks and the other from the barbarians.

​He was also the first to define discourse, saying, "A definition is that which shows what a thing was or is." He used constantly to say, "I would rather go mad than feel pleasure;" and, "One ought to consort with such women as will feel grateful." To the youth from Pontus who was intending to study under him and inquired what things he needed, he said, "A new notebook, and a new stylus, and a new slate," hinting at the need for intelligence. And to someone who asked what kind of woman he should marry, he said, "If she is fair, you will have her in common; if she is ugly, you will have a penalty." Having heard on one occasion that Plato was speaking ill of him, he said, "It is a royal thing to be ill spoken of while doing good."

​Once, when he was being initiated into the Orphic mysteries, and the priest said that those initiated into these rites share in many blessings in Hades, he said, "Why then do you not die?" Being reviled on one occasion for not being born of two free parents, he said, "For neither am I born of two wrestlers, yet a wrestler I am." Being asked why he had few pupils, he said, "Because I drive them away with a silver rod." Being asked why he rebuked his pupils so bitterly, he said, "Physicians also do so to those who are sick." Seeing an adulterer fleeing on one occasion, he said, "Wretched man, what great peril you were able to escape for an obol!" As Hecato says in his Chreiae, he used to say that it was better to fall into the company of crows than that of flatterers; for the former devour the dead, but the latter devour the living.

​Being asked what is the most blessed thing among human beings, he said, "To die happy." When an acquaintance once lamented to him that he had lost his notes, he said, "You ought to have inscribed them in your soul and not on pieces of paper." Just as iron is consumed by rust, he said, so the envious are eaten away by their own disposition. He said that those who wish to be immortal must live piously and justly. He said that cities are destroyed whenever they cannot distinguish the bad from the good. Being praised on one occasion by wicked men, he said, "I am anxious lest I have done something bad."

​He said that the concordant living together of brothers is stronger than any wall. He said that one ought to make such provisions for travel as will swim along even with a shipwrecked man. Being reproached once for associating with wicked men, he said, "Physicians also are with those who are ill, but they do not catch the fever." He said it was strange that men sift out the darnel from wheat and weed out the useless in war, but do not dismiss the wicked in government. Being asked what he had gained from philosophy, he said, "The ability to converse with myself." When someone said to him over wine, "Sing," he said, "Then you play the flute for me." When Diogenes asked him for a tunic, he ordered him to fold his cloak in two.