"If you think," he tells the young
student, "that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and
sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and
rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple,
you don't know what you are about--get you gone; but if you know what a
Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider
how great a thing you are undertaking.
"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of
God. You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. Your life
must be transparently open to the view of God and man. Other men conceal
their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your
house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must
conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as
the spy and messenger of God among mankind.
"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their
blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and
Ofellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not
in power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for
Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their
hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances.
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