Diogenes the Cynic was our childhood mentor, Saladin’s and mine, the first of our wretched race to realize that honor, glory, ambition, wealth, success, all are artificial things, and that pursuing them only makes us miserable. True happiness is to live as Diogenes and Saladin dared, like a dog by the side of the road, eating when the urge comes, pissing when the urge comes, saving all one’s energy for the happy exercises of the mind, which no tyrant can deprive you of.
