holes. To an importunate talker who wanted his help he said, “ I will satisfy your demand, if you will only get others to plead your cause and stay away yourself.” On a voyage in bad company he fell in with pirates. When his companions said, “ We are lost if we are discovered,” ‘“‘ And I too,’ he replied, ‘unless I am discovered.” Conceit he styled a hindrance to progress. Referring to a wealthy miser he said, “ He has not acquired a fortune ; the fortune has acquired him.” Misers, he said, took care of property as if it belonged to them, but derived no more benefit from it than if it belonged to others. “’ When we are young,” said he, “‘ we are courageous, but it is only in old age that prudence is at its height.” Prudence, he said, excels the other virtues as much as sight excels the other senses. He used to say that we ought not to heap reproaches on old age, seeing that, as he said, we all hope to reach it. To a slanderer who showed a grave face his words were, ~ I don’t know whether you have met with ill luck, or your neighbour with good.”” He used to say that low birth made a bad partner for free speech, for— It cows a man, however bold his heart. We ought, he remarked, to watch our friends and see what manner of men they are, in order that we may not be thought to associate with the bad or to decline the friendship of the good. Bion at the outset used to deprecate the Academic doctrines,’ even at the time when he was a pupil of Crates. Then he adopted the Cynic discipline, donning cloak and wallet. For little else was needed to convert him to the doctrine of entire insensibility.
The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.
Crates — a candidate entry
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume I (Books I-V), Diogenes Laertius — translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925
Apparatus shelf — Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vol. I (R. D. Hicks translation, Loeb L184) · R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library, London: William Heinemann / New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, MCMXXV (1925)
license: public-domain (US: published 1925, pre-1930 — the MCMXXV title page verified by the 2026-07-08 acquisition lane, pin in ops/sources/MANIFEST.md; only the English rectos are served, Hicks's translation)