![]() Being reproached with begging when Plato did not beg, "Oh yes," says he, "he does, but when he does so 'He holds his head down close, that none may hear.'"."Because," said Diogenes, "I expect to receive from others again, but whether I shall ever get anything from you again lies on the knees of the gods." The man inquired why it was that he asked others for an obol but him for a mina. When some one 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.".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.".He was asking alms of a bad-tempered man, who said, "Yes, if you can persuade me." "If I could have persuaded you," said Diogenes, "I would have persuaded you to hang yourself.".He was begging of a miserly man who was slow to respond so he said, "My friend, it's for food that I'm asking, not for funeral expenses.". ![]() Being asked why people give to beggars but not to philosophers, he said, "Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy.".In asking alms - as he did at first by reason of his poverty - he used this form: "If you have already given to anyone else, give to me also if not, begin with me.".He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, "To get practice in being refused.".Being short of money, he told his friends that he applied to them not for alms, but for repayment of his due.Being reproached one day for having falsified the currency, he said, "That was the time when I was such as you are now but such as I am now, you will never be." To another who reproached him for the same offence he made a more scurrilous repartee.Again, when some one reminded him that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, "And I them," said he, "to home-staying.".When some one reproached him with his exile, his reply was, "Nay, it was through that, you miserable fellow, that I came to be a philosopher.".Once when he stretched out his staff against him, the pupil offered his head with the words, "Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say." From that time forward he was his pupil, and, exile as he was, set out upon a simple life. Being repulsed by him, because he never welcomed pupils, by sheer persistence Diogenes wore him out. On reaching Athens he fell in with Antisthenes. One version is that his father entrusted him with the money and that he debased it, in consequence of which the father was imprisoned and died, while the son fled, came to Delphi, and inquired, not whether he should falsify the coinage, but what he should do to gain the greatest reputation and that then it was that he received the oracle. When the god gave him permission to alter the political currency, not understanding what this meant, he adulterated the state coinage, and when he was detected, according to some he was banished, while according to others he voluntarily quitted the city for fear of consequences. ![]() Some say that having been appointed to superintend the workmen he was persuaded by them, and that he went to Delphi or to the Delian oracle in his own city and inquired of Apollo whether he should do what he was urged to do. Moreover Diogenes himself actually confesses in his Pordalus that he adulterated the coinage. But Eubulides in his book on Diogenes says that Diogenes himself did this and was forced to leave home along with his father. Diocles relates that he went into exile because his father was entrusted with the money of the state and adulterated the coinage.
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