Julian relates the following anecdote: “Once when Diogenes was in a crowd of people, a certain youth farted. Diogenes poked him with his staff and said, ‘And so, vile wretch, though you have done nothing that would give you the right to take such liberties in public, are you beginning here and now to show your scorn of opinion ?’” Here Diogenes himself explains indirectly the Cynic method for criticizing conventional opinion: he regards the fart as social comment, equal to outspokenness or any other form of human expression of dissatisfaction. Diogenes attacks the young man not for the act of farting in public, but for farting in public without expressing contempt for society. – The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy
“What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.”
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