(Therefore he who desires to be a Cynic despises all the usages and opinions of men, and turns his mind first of all to himself and the god. For him gold is not gold or sand sand, if one enquire into their value with a view to exchanging them, and leave it to him to rate them at their proper worth: for he knows that both of them are but earth. And the fact that one is scarcer and the other easier to obtain he thinks is merely the result of the vanity and ignorance of mankind. He will judge of the baseness or nobility of an action, not by the applause or blame of men but by its intrinsic nature. He avoids any excess in food, and renounces the pleasures of love. When he is forced to obey the needs of the body he is not the slave of opinion, nor does he wait for a cook and sauces and a savoury smell, nor does he ever look about for Phryne or Lais or So‐and‐ so’s wife or young daughter or serving‐maid. But as far as possible he satisfies his body’s needs with whatever comes to hand, and by thrusting aside all hindrances derived from the body he contemplates from above, from the peaks of Olympus, other men who are) Ἄτης ἐν λειμῶνι κατὰ σκότον ἠλάσκοντας, (“Wandering in darkness in the meadow of Ate,”(221)) ὑπὲρ ὀλίγων παντάπασιν ἀπολαύσεων ὑπομένοντας ὅσα οὐδὲ παρὰ τὸν Κωκυτὸν καὶ τὸν Ἀχέροντα θρυλοῦσιν οἱ κομψότεροι τῶν ποιητῶν. ἡ σύντομος ὁδός ἐστιν αὕτη. [C] δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν ἀθρόως ἐκστῆναι ἑαυτοῦ καὶ γνῶναι, ὅτι θεῖός ἐστι, καὶ τὸν νοῦν μὲν τὸν ἑαυτοῦ ἀτρύτως καὶ ἀμετακινήτως συνέχειν ἐν τοῖς θείοις καὶ ἀχράντοις καὶ καθαροῖς νοήμασιν, ὀλιγωρεῖν δὲ πάντη τοῦ σώματος καὶ νομίζειν αὐτὸ κατὰ τὸν Ἡράκλειτον κοπρίων ἐκβλητότερον, ἐκ τοῦ ῥᾴστου δὲ αὑτῷ τὰς θεραπείας ἀποπληροῦν, ἕως ἂν ὁ θεὸς ὥσπερ ὀργάνῳ τῷ σώματι χρῆσθαι ἐπιτάττῃ. (and for the sake of a few wholly trifling pleasures are undergoing torments greater than any by the Cocytus or Acheron such as the most ingenious of the poets are always telling us about. Now the true short cut to philosophy is this. A man must completely come out of himself and recognise that he is divine, and not only keep his mind untiringly and steadfastly fixed on divine and stainless and pure thoughts, but he must also utterly despise his body, and think it, in the words of Heracleitus, “more worthless than dirt.”(222) And by the easiest means he must satisfy his body’s needs so long as the god commands him to use it as an instrument.)