When we had departed from them and had set sail, we came with a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. Having found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail. When we had come in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left hand, we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre, for the ship was there to unload her cargo. Having found disciples, we stayed there seven days. These said to Paul through the Spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem. When those days were over, we departed and went on our journey. They all, with wives and children, brought us on our way until we were out of the city. Kneeling down on the beach, we prayed. After saying goodbye to each other, we went on board the ship, and they returned home again.

After these days we took up our baggage and went up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea also went with us, bringing one Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom we would stay.

After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, took leave of them, and departed to go into Macedonia. When he had gone through those parts and had encouraged them with many words, he came into Greece. When he had spent three months there, and a plot was made against him by Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he determined to return through Macedonia. These accompanied him as far as Asia: Sopater of Beroea, Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. But these had gone ahead, and were waiting for us at Troas. We sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and came to them at Troas in five days, where we stayed seven days.

The Return from Rome

Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6: The Cynics

He did not lean upon a staff until he grew infirm; but afterwards he would carry it everywhere, not indeed in the city, but when walking along the road with it and with his wallet; so say Olympiodorus, once a magistrate at Athens, Polyeuctus the orator, and Lysanias the son of Aeschrio. He had written to some one to try and procure a cottage for him. When this man was a long time about it, he took for his abode the tub in the Metron, as he himself explains in his letters. And in summer he used to roll in it over hot sand, while in winter he used to embrace statues covered with snow, using every means of inuring himself to hardship.

He dedicated to Asclepius a bruiser who, whenever people fell on their faces, used to run up to them and bruise them. All the curses of tragedy, he used to say, had lighted upon him. At all events he was A homeless exile, to his country dead. A wanderer who begs his daily bread. But he claimed that to fortune he could oppose courage, to convention nature, to passion reason. When he was sunning himself in the Craneum, Alexander came and stood over him and said, "Ask of me any boon you like." To which he replied, "Stand out of my light." Some one had been reading aloud for a very long time, and when he was near the end of the roll pointed to a space with no writing on it. "Cheer up, my men," cried Diogenes; "there's land in sight."

The boys used to get by heart many passages from poets, historians, and the writings of Diogenes himself; and he would practise them in every short cut to a good memory. In the house too he taught them to wait upon themselves, and to be content with plain fare and water to drink. He used to make them crop their hair close and to wear it unadorned, and to go lightly clad, barefoot, silent, and not looking about them in the streets. He would also take them out hunting. They on their part had a great regard for Diogenes and made requests of their parents for him. The same Eubulus relates that he grew old in the house of Xeniades, and when he died was buried by his sons.

Discourses 3.22: On the Calling of a Cynic

What are you, then? Truly a shepherd! for you wail as the shepherds do when a wolf carries off one of their sheep; and these men over whom you rule are sheep. But why did you come here in the first place? Your desire was not in danger, was it, or your avoidance, your choice, or your refusal? "No," he answers, "but my brother's frail wife was carried off." Was it not, then, a great gain to lose a frail and adulterous wife? "Shall we, then, be despised by the Trojans?" Who are they? Wise men or foolish? If wise, why are you fighting with them? If foolish, why do you care? "In what, then, is the good, since it is not in these things? Tell us. Sir messenger and scout." "It is where you do not expect it, and do not wish to look for it. For if you had wished, you would have found it within you, and you would not now be wandering outside, nor would you be seeking what does not concern you, as though it were your own possession. Turn your thoughts upon yourselves, find out the kind of preconceived ideas which you have. what sort of a thing do you imagine the good to be? Serenity, happiness, freedom from restraint. Come, do you not imagine it to be something naturally great? Something precious? Something not injurious?

and the Cynic will think him worthy to receive him into his house? So if that is what you think and have in mind, you had much better look around for some nice dunghill, on which to have your fever, one that will give you shelter from the north wind, so that you won't get chilled. But you give me the impression of wanting to go into somebody's house for a while and to get filled up. Why, then, are you even laying your hand to so great an enterprise? But, said the young man, will marriage and children be undertaken by the Cynic as a matter of prime importance?—If, replied Epictetus, you grant me a city of wise men, it might very well be that no one will lightly adopt the Cynic's profession. For in whose interest would he take on this style of life? If, nevertheless, we assume that he does so act, there will be nothing to prevent him from both marrying and having children; for his wife will be another person like himself, and so will his father-in-law, and his children will be brought up in the same fashion. But in such an order of things as the present, which is like that of a battle-field, it is a question, perhaps, if the Cynic ought not to be free from distraction, wholly devoted to the service of God, free to go about among men, not tied down by the private duties of men, nor involved in relationships which he cannot violate and still maintain his role as a good and excellent man, whereas, on the other hand, if he observes them, he will destroy the messenger, the scout, the herald of the gods, that he is.

"From now on my mind is the material with which I have to work, as the carpenter has his timbers, the shoemaker his hides; my business is to make the right use of my impressions. My paltry body is nothing to me; the parts of it are nothing to me. Death? Let it come when it will, whether it be the death of the whole or some part. Exile? And to what place can anyone thrust me out? Outside the universe he cannot. But wherever I go, there are sun, moon, stars, dreams, omens, my converse with gods." In the next place, the true Cynic, when he is thus prepared, cannot rest contented with this, but he must know that he has been sent by Zeus to men, partly as a messenger, in order to show them that in questions of good and evil they have gone astray, and are seeking the true nature of the good and the evil where it is not, but where it is they never think; and partly, in the words of Diogenes, when he was taken off to Philip, after the battle of Chaeroneia, as a scout. For the Cynic is truly a scout, to find out what things are friendly to men and what hostile;

The Dhammapada

Forests are delightful; where the world finds no delight, there the passionless will find delight, for they look not for pleasures.

Even in heavenly pleasures he finds no satisfaction, the disciple who is fully awakened delights only in the destruction of all desires. Men, driven by fear, go to many a refuge, to mountains and forests, to groves and sacred trees. But that is not a safe refuge, that is not the best refuge; a man is not delivered from all pains after having gone to that refuge.

There is no suffering for him who has finished his journey, and abandoned grief, who has freed himself on all sides, and thrown off all fetters. They depart with their thoughts well-collected, they are not happy in their abode; like swans who have left their lake, they leave their house and home. Men who have no riches, who live on recognised food, who have perceived void and unconditioned freedom (Nirvana), their path is difficult to understand, like that of birds in the air.

The Bhagavad Gita

Then, beholding the sons of Dhritarâshtra standing arrayed, and flight of missiles about to begin, he whose crest is an ape, the son of Pându, took up his bow, And spake this word to Hrishîkesha, O Lord of Earth: Arjuna said: In the midst, between the two armies, stay my chariot, O Achyuta, That I may behold these standing, longing for battle, with whom I must strive in this outbreaking war,

Dhritarâshtra said: On the holy plain, on the field of Kuru, gathered together, eager for battle, what did they, O Sanjaya, my people and the Pândavas? Sanjaya said: Having seen arrayed the army of the Pândavas, the Prince Duryodhana approached his teacher, and spake these words: "Behold this mighty host of the sons of Pându, O teacher, arrayed by the son of Drupada, thy wise disciple.

And gaze on those here gathered together ready to fight, desirous of pleasing in battle the evil-minded son of Dhritarâshtra. Sanjaya said: Thus addressed by Gudâkesha, Hrishîkesha, O Bhârata, having stayed that best of chariots in the midst, between the two armies, Over against Bhîshma, Drona and all the rulers of the world, said: "O Pârtha, behold these Kurus gathered together."

Shinto Oracles

Leave the things of this world and come to me daily and monthly with pure bodies and pure hearts. You will then enjoy paradise in this world and have all your desires accomplished.

In the last days the world will be disturbed and all men troubled. The sovereign house will show respect for the military house, and local governors will make friends with wearisome fellows (Buddhist monks). Buddhist priests will take to them, wives, eat flesh, and propagate base doctrines. The land of Ashihara of the fair rice-ears is the rightful property of my descendants.

Ye men of mine. Shun desire. If you shun desire you will ascend to a level with the Gods. Every little yielding to anxiety is a step away from the natural heart of man. If one leaves the natural heart of man, he becomes a beast. That men should be made so, is to me intolerable pain and unending sorrow

The Tao Te Ching

Gravity is the root of lightness; stillness, the ruler of movement. Therefore a wise prince, marching the whole day, does not go far from his baggage waggons. Although he may have brilliant prospects to look at, he quietly remains (in his proper place), indifferent to them. How should the lord of a myriad chariots carry himself lightly before the kingdom? If he do act lightly, he has lost his root (of gravity); if he proceed to active movement, he will lose his throne.

In a little state with a small population, I would so order it, that, though there were individuals with the abilities of ten or a hundred men, there should be no employment of them; I would make the people, while looking on death as a grievous thing, yet not remove elsewhere (to avoid it). Though they had boats and carriages, they should have no occasion to ride in them; though they had buff coats and sharp weapons, they should have no occasion to don or use them. I would make the people return to the use of knotted cords (instead of the written characters). They should think their (coarse) food sweet; their (plain) clothes beautiful; their (poor) dwellings places of rest; and their common (simple) ways sources of enjoyment. There should be a neighbouring state within sight, and the voices of the fowls and dogs should be heard all the way from it to us, but I would make the people to old age, even to death, not have any intercourse with it.

Men come forth and live; they enter (again) and die. Of every ten three are ministers of life (to themselves); and three are ministers of death. There are also three in every ten whose aim is to live, but whose movements tend to the land (or place) of death. And for what reason? Because of their excessive endeavours to perpetuate life. But I have heard that he who is skilful in managing the life entrusted to him for a time travels on the land without having to shun rhinoceros or tiger, and enters a host without having to avoid buff coat or sharp weapon. The rhinoceros finds no place in him into which to thrust its horn, nor the tiger a place in which to fix its claws, nor the weapon a place to admit its point. And for what reason? Because there is in him no place of death.

The Analects of Confucius

When fasting, he thought it necessary to have his clothes brightly clean and made of linen cloth. When fasting, he thought it necessary to change his food, and also to change the place where he commonly sat in the apartment.

Yen Yuan and Chi Lu being by his side, the Master said to them, 'Come, let each of you tell his wishes.' Tsze-lu said, 'I should like, having chariots and horses, and light fur dresses, to share them with my friends, and though they should spoil them, I would not be displeased.' Yen Yuan said, 'I should like not to boast of my excellence, nor to make a display of my meritorious deeds.' Tsze-lu then said, 'I should like, sir, to hear your wishes.' The Master said, 'They are, in regard to the aged, to give them rest; in regard to friends, to show them sincerity; in regard to the young, to treat them tenderly.'

Kung-shan Fu-zao, when he was holding Pi, and in an attitude of rebellion, invited the Master to visit him, who was rather inclined to go. Tsze-lu was displeased, and said, 'Indeed, you cannot go! Why must you think of going to see Kung-shan?' The Master said, 'Can it be without some reason that he has invited ME? If any one employ me, may I not make an eastern Chau?'

The Meaning of the Glorious Koran

And thou wouldst have deemed them waking though they were asleep, and We caused them to turn over to the right and the left, and their dog stretching out his paws on the threshold. If thou hadst observed them closely thou hadst assuredly turned away from them in flight, and hadst been filled with awe of them. And in like manner We awakened them that they might question one another. A speaker from among them said: How long have ye tarried? They said: We have tarried a day or some part of a day, (Others) said: Your Lord best knoweth what ye have tarried. Now send one of you with this your silver coin unto the city, and let him see what food is purest there and bring you a supply thereof. Let him be courteous and let no man know of you.

And when Moses said unto his servant: I will not give up until I reach the point where the two rivers meet, though I march on for ages. And when they reached the point where the two met, they forgot their fish, and it took its way into the waters, being free. And when they had gone further, he said unto his servant: Bring us our breakfast. Verily we have found fatigue in this our journey.

When ye were on the near bank (of the valley) and they were on the yonder bank, and the caravan was below you (on the coast plain). And had ye trysted to meet one another ye surely would have failed to keep the tryst, but (it happened, as it did, without the forethought of either of you) that Allah might conclude a thing that must be done; that he who perished (on that day) might perish by a clear proof (of His Sovereignty) and he who survived might survive by a clear proof (of His Sovereignty). Lo! Allah in truth is Hearer, Knower.

The Japji

God created nights, seasons, lunar days, and week days, Wind, water, fire, and the nether regions. In the midst of these He established the earth as a temple. In it He placed living beings of different habits and kinds. Their names are various and endless, And they are judged according to their acts. True is God, and true is His court. There the elect are accepted and honoured. The Merciful One marketh them according to their acts. The bad and the good shall there be distinguished. Nanak, on arrival there, this shall be seen.

In the realm of knowledge the light of divine knowledge is resplendent. There are heard songs from which millions of joys and pleasures proceed. Beauty is the attribute of the realm of happiness. There things are fashioned in an incomparable manner. What is done there cannot be described. Whoever endeavoureth to describe it shall afterwards repent. There are fashioned knowledge, wisdom, intellect, and understanding; And there too is fashioned the skill of demigods and men of supernatural power.

Make contentment and modesty thine earrings, self-respect thy wallet, meditation the ashes to smear on thy body; Make thy body, which is only a morsel for death, thy beggar's coat, and faith thy rule of life and thy staff. Make association with men thine Ai Panth, and the conquest of thy heart the conquest of the world. Hail! Hail to Him, The primal, the pure, without beginning, the indestructible, the same in every age!

World English Bible

The Sojourn at Cyprus—Discourse on Mind

It was their plan to enjoy a period of real rest and play on this visit to Cyprus as their tour of the Mediterranean was drawing to a close. They landed at Paphos and at once began the assembly of supplies for their sojourn of several weeks in the near-by mountains. On the third day after their arrival they started for the hills with their well-loaded pack animals.

133:7.2

Closest passages