A Stoic Breviary

After seeing a stupid wrestler practicing as a doctor, Diogenes inquired of him, "What does this mean? Is it that you may now have your revenge on the rivals who formerly beat you?" 

Seeing the child of a courtesan throw stones at a crowd, he cried out, "Take care you don't hit your father." 

A boy having shown him a dagger that he had received from an admirer, Diogenes remarked, "A pretty blade with an ugly handle." 

When some people commended a person who had given him a gratuity, he broke in with "You have no praise for me who was worthy to receive it." 

When someone asked that he might have back his cloak, "If it was a gift," replied Diogenes, "I possess it; while, if it was a loan, I am using it." 

A supposititious son having told him that he had gold in the pocket of his dress, "True," said he, "and therefore you sleep with it under your pillow." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.62 

IMAGE: Bernard Picart, Diogenes (1724) 

Of the three kinds of life, the contemplative, the practical, and the rational, the Stoics declare that we ought to choose the last, for that a rational being is expressly produced by nature both for contemplation and for action. 

They tell us that the wise man will for reasonable cause make his own exit from life, on his country’s behalf or for the sake of his friends, or if he suffer intolerable pain, mutilation, or incurable disease. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.130 

Holy Thursday (1789) 

William Blake (1757-1827) 

Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean The children walking two & two in red & blue & green Grey-headed beadles walkd before, with wands as white as snow Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow O what a multitude they seemd these flowers of London town Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door 

—Epictetus, The Handbook 1 

Him I call indeed a Brahmana who calls nothing his own—whether it be before, behind, or between—who is poor, and free from the love of the world. 

IMAGE: James McNeill Whistler, Harmony in Blue and Silver (1865)