Discourses - Book III   

familiar: then, if you are of so ignoble a nature, again if you
leave these also, weep and lament.
"How then shall I become of an affectionate temper?" By being of a
noble disposition, and happy. For it is not reasonable to be
means-spirited nor to lament yourself, nor to depend on another, nor
even to blame God or man. I entreat you, become an affectionate person
in this way, by observing these rules. But if through this
affection, as you name it, you are going to be a slave and wretched,
there is no profit in being affectionate. And what prevents you from
loving another as a person subject to mortality, as one who may go
away from you. Did not Socrates love his own children? He did; but
it was as a free man, as one who remembered that he must first be a
friend to the gods. For this reason he violated nothing which was
becoming to a good man, neither in making his defense nor by fixing
a penalty on himself, nor even in the former part of his life when
he was a senator or when be was a soldier. But we are fully supplied
with every pretext for being of ignoble temper, some for the sake of a
child, some for a mother, and others for brethren's sake. But it is
not fit for us to be unhappy on account of any person, but to be happy
on account of all, but chiefly on account of God who has made us for
this end. Well, did Diogenes love nobody, who was so kind and so
much a lover of all that for mankind in general he willingly undertook
so much labour and bodily sufferings? He did love mankind, but how? As
became a minister of God, at the same time caring for men, and being
also subject to God. For this reason all the earth was his country,
and no particular place; and when he was taken prisoner he did not
regret Athens nor his associates and friends there, but even he became
familiar with the pirates and tried to improve them; and being sold
afterward he lived in Corinth as before at Athens; and he would have
behaved the same, if he had gone to the country of the Perrhaebi. Thus
is freedom acquired. For this reason he used to say, "Ever since
Antisthenes made me free, I have not been a slave." How did
Antisthenes make him free? Hear what he says: "Antisthenes taught me
what is my own, and what is not my own; possessions are not my own,
nor kinsmen, domestics, friends, nor reputation, nor places
familiar, nor mode of life; all these belong to others." What then
is your own? "The use of appearances. This be showed to me, that I
possess it free from hindrance, and from compulsion, no person can put
an obstacle in my way, no person can force me to use appearances
otherwise than I wish." Who then has any power over me? Philip or
Alexander, or Perdiccas or the Great King? How have they this power?
For if a man is going to be overpowered by a man, he must long
before be overpowered by things. If, then, pleasure is not able to
subdue a man, nor pain, nor fame, nor wealth, but he is able, when
he chooses, to spit out all his poor body in a man's face and depart
from life, whose slave can he still be? But if he dwelt with
pleasure in Athens, and was overpowered by this manner of life, his
affairs would have been at every man's command; the stronger would
have had the power of grieving him. How do you think that Diogenes
would have flattered the pirates that they might sell him to some