Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
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Diogenes the Wise Man
A
T Cor-inth, in Greece, there lived a very wise
man whose name was Di-og´enes.
Men came
from all parts of the land to see him and hear
him talk.
But wise as he was, he had some very queer ways.
He did not believe that any man ought to have
more things than he re-al-ly needed; and he said
that no man needed much. And so he did not live
in a house, but slept in a tub or barrel, which he
rolled about from place to place. He spent his days
sitting in the sun, and saying wise things to those
who were around him.
At noon one day, Di-og-e-nes was seen walking through the
streets with a lighted lantern, and looking all around as
if in search of something.
"Why do you carry a lantern when the sun is
shining?" some one said.
"I am looking for an honest man," answered
Diogenes.
When Alexander the Great went to
Cor-inth, all the
fore-most men in the city came out to see him and to praise him.
But Diogenes did not come; and he was the only man for whose
o-pin-ions Alexander cared.
And so, since the wise man wonld not come to
see the king, the king went to see the wise man. He
found Diogenes in an out-of-the-way place, lying on the
ground by his tub. He was en-joy-ing the heat and the light of the sun.
Diogenes and Alexander
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When he saw the king and a great many people coming, he sat
up and looked at Alexander. Alexander greeted him and said,—
"Diogenes, I have heard a great deal about your wisdom. Is
there anything that I can do for you?"
"Yes," said Diogenes. "You can stand a little on one
side, so as not to keep the sunshine from me."
This answer was so dif-fer-ent
from what he expected, that
the king was much sur-prised. But it did not make him angry;
it only made him admire the strange man all the more. When
he turned to ride back, he said to his officers,—
"Say what you will; if I were not Alexander, I would like
to be Diogenes."