Golden Sayings   

revenue and supplies, when his business is to converse with all
men, Athenians, Corinthians, and Romans alike, not about
supplies, not about revenue, nor yet peace and war, but about
Happiness and Misery, Prosperity and Adversity, Slavery and
Freedom?
Ask you whether a man shall engage in the administration of
the State who has engaged in such an Administration as this? Ask
me too if he shall govern; and again I will answer, Fool, what
greater government shall he hold than he holds already?

CXVIII

Such a man needs also to have a certain habit of body. If he
appears consumptive, thin and pale, his testimony has no longer
the same authority. He must not only prove to the unlearned by
showing them what his Soul is that it is possible to be a good
man apart from all that they admire; but he must also show them,
by his body, that a plain and simple manner of life under the
open sky does no harm to the body either. "See, I am proof of
this! and my body also." As Diogenes used to do, who went about
fresh of look and by the very appearance of his body drew men's
eyes. But if a Cynic is an object of pity, he seems a mere
beggar; all turn away, all are offended at him. Nor should he be
slovenly of look, so as not to scare men from him in this way
either; on the contrary, his very roughness should be clean and
attractive.

CXIX

Kings and tyrants have armed guards wherewith to chastise
certain persons, though they themselves be evil. But to the Cynic
conscience gives this power--not arms and guards. When he knows
that he has watched and laboured on behalf of mankind: that sleep
hath found him pure, and left him purer still: that his thoughts
have been the thought of a Friend of the Gods--of a servant, yet
one that hath a part in the government of the Supreme God: that
the words are ever on his lips:--

Lead me, O God, and thou, O Destiny!
as well as these:--

If this be God's will, so let it be!
why should he not speak boldly unto his own brethren, unto his
children--in a word, unto all that are akin to him!

CXX

Does a Philosopher apply to people to come and hear him?
does he not rather, of his own nature, attract those that will be
benefited by him--like the sun that warms, the food that sustains