According to legend, Alexander the Great came to visit the philosopher Diogenes of Sinope. Alexander wanted to fulfill a wish for Diogenes and asked him what he desired. As told by Diogenes Laërtius, Diogenes replied, “Stand out of my light.”
One day while he was eating a frugal dish of lentils, he was challenged by the philosopher Aristippus, who, for his part, led a golden life as he was one of the king’s courtiers. Aristippus scornfully told him: “See, if you learned to crawl before the king, you wouldn’t have to settle for rubbish like this vulgar dish of lentils!” Diogenes replied: “If you’d learned to make do with lentils, you wouldn’t have to crawl before the king!”
Big dick energy. Love this guy.
“Were I not Alexander, I would want to be Diogenes.”
Diogenes: “I feel the same way, bro. I would want to be me too.”
Usually it’s translated as “step/stand out of my sun” (just in case someone is wondering which light is meant)
Diogenes was, by all accounts, a gross-ass motherfucker.
…but I like his revolutionary spirit.
He was a raving homeless man who frequently masturbated in public and antagonized anyone who would approach him. However, beyond all that he was one of the smartest people in the ancient world and lived life never comporimising his principles.
Mhmm. Gross.
Yeah… something about the anecdotes told about Diogenes sounds off to me - you don’t see homeless people today live the charmed life they say Diogenes got to live.
It’s not implausible. Being a famous wit and wacky character can get someone a lot of latitude. I’m reminded of the Emporer of the United States, a locally famous weirdo who lived in San Francisco way back. Among his other notable hijinks, he was unemployed, yet never went hungry because he printed his own alternate currency (which he insisted was the only valid currency). Many of the local shops and restaurants just accepted it like official money even though it was worthless to anyone else, because everyone enjoyed his antics so much.
There are characters like this in New Orleans. They just get by and get high with the community. Homeless people really help each other out down there too
Thanks for a nice read!
He was pretty cool with slavery though.
Child of his time. A working society without slaves wasn’t imaginable.
Also slavery was typically
nowhere near asa different sort of brutal in that era. Still brutal and terrible, but not “working people to death and then shipping in more people to work to death” brutal.Edit: changed my wording because slavery has always been fucking horrible, e.g. eunuchs
I always say, eating the rich would be disgusting. My proposition is to ground them up and use them as fertiliser. Preferably we grind them alive.
Removed by mod
Behold, a man!
This is back in a time where like 0.1% of the population was literate.
Did he mean Dionysus?
my boy
