"His [Diogenes] doctrine, though he was a contemporary of Aristotle, belongs in its temper to the Hellenistic age. Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have, in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat. The world is bad; let us learn to be independent of it. External goods are precarious; they are the gift of fortune, not the reward of our own efforts. Only subjective goods—virtue or contentment through resignation—are secure, and these alone, therefore, will be valued by the wise man... it was certainly not a doctrine calculated to promote art of science or statesmanship, or any useful activity except one of protest against powerful evil."
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_History_of_Western_Philosophy
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A History of Western Philosophy
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