He begins by saying that a true Cynic is so lofty a being that he who undertakes the profession without due qualifications kindles against him the anger of heaven.  He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the imperial office of an Agamemnon.  “If you think,” he tells the young student, “that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple, you don’t know what you are about—­get you gone; but if you know what a Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider how great a thing you are undertaking.

“First as to yourself.  You must be absolutely resigned to the will of God.  You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire.  Your life must be transparently open to the view of God and man.  Other men conceal their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame.  You must conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal.  You must be known as the spy and messenger of God among mankind.

“You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their blindness and misery they seek it.  It is not in strength, for Myro and Ofellius were not happy:  not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy:  not in power, for the Consuls are not happy:  not in all these together, for Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances.  It lies in yourselves:  in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of contentment and peace, and the ‘even flow of life’ amid poverty, exile, disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death.  Can you face this Olympic contest?  Are your thews and sinews strong enough?  Can you face the fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped?

“Only by God’s aid can you attain to this.  Only by His aid can you be beaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an unshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men would cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair.

“The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre?  The friend of the truly noble must be as truly noble as himself, and such a friend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find.  Nor must he marry; marriage is right and honourable in other men, but its entanglements, its expenses, its distractions, would render impossible a life devoted to the service of heaven.

“Nor will he mingle in the affairs of any commonwealth:  his commonwealth is not Athens or Corinth, but mankind.