Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Being asked what branch of learning is the most necessary, he said, "To strip away, that is, to unlearn what is bad." He also urged that those who are ill spoken of should endure it more patiently than if someone were pelting them with stones. He mocked Plato as full of vanity. At any rate, when a procession was taking place and he caught sight of a spirited horse, he said to Plato, "You seem to me as if you too would have made a showy horse;" and this he said because Plato was continually praising the horse. And once, having gone to visit Plato when he was ill and seeing a basin into which Plato had vomited, he said, "Bile I see in here, but vanity I do not see."

​He advised the Athenians to vote that donkeys are horses; and when they considered this absurd, he said, "And yet generals also are created among you who have learned nothing, but have only been elected by show of hands." To someone who said, "Many praise you," he replied, "Why, what bad thing have I done?" When he turned the torn part of his worn cloak to the outside, Socrates saw it and said, "I see your love of fame through your cloak." Being asked by someone, as Phanias says in his work On the Socratics, what he should do to become a noble and good man, he said, "If you should learn from those who know that the evils you have are things to be avoided." To someone praising luxury, he said, "May the children of my enemies live in luxury!"

​To a youth striking attitudes for a sculptor, he said, "Tell me, if bronze were to take a voice, on what do you think it would take pride?" And when the youth replied, "On beauty," he said, "Are you not ashamed, then, to rejoice in the same things as an inanimate object?" When a young man from Pontus promised to treat him lavishly if his cargo boat of salt-fish arrived, he took him and an empty sack, went to a barley-meal seller, filled it, and started to leave; and when she demanded the price, he said, "The young man will pay if his cargo boat of salt-fish arrives." He himself is also considered to have been the cause of exile for Anytus and of death for Meletus.

​For having met young men from Pontus who had arrived attracted by the fame of Socrates, he led them away to Anytus, saying sarcastically that he was wiser than Socrates; whereupon the bystanders, deeply indignant, drove Anytus into exile. And if he ever caught sight of a finely adorned woman, he would go to her house and bid her husband bring out horse and armor, so that, if he had these, he should let her live in luxury (for he would defend himself with them); but if not, he should strip off her finery. He was also pleased with the following tenets: he proved that virtue can be taught; and that the noble-born are the very same as the virtuous;

​and that virtue is sufficient for happiness, needing nothing in addition except the strength of a Socrates. He held that virtue consists in deeds, needing neither very many words nor lessons. He held that the wise man is self-sufficient, for all the possessions of others belong to him; that ill repute is a good thing and equal to toil; and that the wise man will not govern himself in civil life according to the established laws, but according to the law of virtue. He will marry for the sake of begetting children, uniting with women of the best natural endowments; and he will also fall in love, for the wise man alone knows whom one ought to love.

​Diocles also records these sayings of his: for the wise man nothing is alien or unmanageable; the good man is worthy of love; the virtuous are friends; one should make allies of those who are at once courageous and just; virtue is an inalienable weapon; it is better to fight with a few good men against all the bad than with many bad men against a few good. Keep an eye on enemies, for they are the first to perceive faults. Value the just person above a kinsman; the virtue of a man and of a woman is the same; good things are noble, bad things are shameful; consider all wicked things as foreign.

​Prudence is the most secure wall, for it neither crumbles nor is betrayed. Walls must be constructed in our own invulnerable calculations. He used to converse in the gymnasium of Cynosarges, a little way from the gates; whence some suppose that the Cynic school was named from that place. He himself was called the Pure Dog. And he was the first to double his cloak, as Diocles says, and he wore it alone; he also took up a staff and a wallet. Neanthes too says that he was the first to double his cloak. But Sosicrates, in the third book of the Successions, says that Diodorus of Aspendus did this, and let his beard grow, and used a wallet and a staff.