"Well then; do you wish me to pay court to a certain person? to go to his doors?" If reason requires this to be done for the sake of country, for the sake of kinsmen, for the sake of mankind, why should you not go? You are not ashamed to go to the doors of a shoemaker, when you are in want of shoes, nor to the door of a gardener, when you want lettuces; and are you ashamed to go to the doors of the rich when you want anything? "Yes, for I have no awe of a shoemaker." Don't feel any awe of the rich. "Nor will I flatter the gardener." And do not flatter the rich. "How, then, shall I get what I want?" Do I say to you, "Go as if you were certain to get what you want"? And do not I only tell you that you may do what is becoming to yourself? "Why, then, should I still go?" That you may have gone, that you may have discharged the duty of a citizen, of a brother, of a friend. And further remember that you have gone to the shoemaker, to the seller of vegetables, who have no power in anything great or noble, though he may sell dear. You go to buy lettuces: they cost an obolus, but not a talent. So it is here also. The matter is worth going for to the rich man's door. Well, I will go. It is worth talking about. Let it be so;
I will talk with him. But you must also kiss his hand and flatter him with praise. Away with that, it is a talent's worth: it is not profitable to me, nor to the state nor to my friends, to have done that which spoils a good citizen and a friend. "But you seem not to have been eager about the matter, if you do not succeed." Have you again forgotten why you went? Know you not that a good man does nothing for the sake of appearance, but for the sake of doing right? "What advantage is it, then, to him to have done right?" And what advantage is it to a man who writes the name of Dion to write it as he ought? The advantage is to have written it. "Is there no reward then?" Do you seek a reward for a good man greater than doing what is good and just? At Olympia you wish for nothing more, but it seems to you enough to be crowned at the games. Does it seem to you so small and worthless a thing to be good and happy? For these purposes being introduced by the gods into this city, and it being now your duty to undertake the work of a man, do you still want nurses also and a mamma, and do foolish women by their weeping move you and make you effeminate? Will you thus never cease to be a foolish child? know you not that he who does the acts of a child, the older he is, the more ridiculous he is?
In Athens did you see no one by going to his house? "I visited any man that I pleased." Here also be ready to see, and you will see whom you please: only let it be without meanness, neither with desire nor with aversion, and your affairs will be well managed. But this result does not depend on going nor on standing at the doors, but it depends on what is within, on your opinions. When you have learned not to value things which are external, and not dependent on the will, and to consider that not one of them is your own, but that these things only are your own, to exercise the judgment well, to form opinions, to move toward an object, to desire, to turn from a thing, where is there any longer room for flattery, where for meanness? why do you still long for the quiet there, and for the places to which you are accustomed? Wait a little and you will again find these places familiar: then, if you are of so ignoble a nature, again if you leave these also, weep and lament.
"How then shall I become of an affectionate temper?" By being of a noble disposition, and happy. For it is not reasonable to be means-spirited nor to lament yourself, nor to depend on another, nor even to blame God or man. I entreat you, become an affectionate person in this way, by observing these rules. But if through this affection, as you name it, you are going to be a slave and wretched, there is no profit in being affectionate. And what prevents you from loving another as a person subject to mortality, as one who may go away from you. Did not Socrates love his own children? He did; but it was as a free man, as one who remembered that he must first be a friend to the gods. For this reason he violated nothing which was becoming to a good man, neither in making his defense nor by fixing a penalty on himself, nor even in the former part of his life when he was a senator or when be was a soldier. But we are fully supplied with every pretext for being of ignoble temper, some for the sake of a child, some for a mother, and others for brethren's sake. But it is not fit for us to be unhappy on account of any person, but to be happy on account of all, but chiefly on account of God who has made us for this end. Well, did Diogenes love nobody, who was so kind and so much a lover of all that for mankind in general he willingly undertook so much labour and bodily sufferings? He did love mankind, but how? As became a minister of God, at the same time caring for men, and being also subject to God. For this reason all the earth was his country, and no particular place; and when he was taken prisoner he did not regret Athens nor his associates and friends there, but even he became familiar with the pirates and tried to improve them; and being sold afterward he lived in Corinth as before at Athens; and he would have behaved the same, if he had gone to the country of the Perrhaebi. Thus is freedom acquired. For this reason he used to say, "Ever since Antisthenes made me free, I have not been a slave." How did Antisthenes make him free? Hear what he says: "Antisthenes taught me what is my own, and what is not my own; possessions are not my own, nor kinsmen, domestics, friends, nor reputation, nor places familiar, nor mode of life; all these belong to others."
