to spit in.”
Charondas, or as some say, Phædon, asked him once, “Who are the people who use perfumes?” “I do,” said he, “wretched man that I am, and the king of the Persians is still more wretched than I; but, recollect, that as no animal is the worse for having a pleasant scent, so neither is a man; but plague take those wretches who abuse our beautiful unguents.” On another occasion, he was asked how Socrates died; and he made answer, “As I should wish to die myself.” When Polyxenus, the Sophist, came to his house and beheld his women, and the costly preparation that was made for dinner, and then blamed him for all this luxury, Aristippus after a while said, “Can you stay with me to day?” and when Polyxenus consented, “Why then,” said he, “did you blame me? it seems that you blame not the luxury, but the expense of it.” When his servant was once carrying some money along the road, and was oppressed by the weight of it (as Bion relates in his Dissertations), he said to him, “Drop what is beyond your strength, and only carry what you can.” Once he was at sea, and seeing a pirate vessel at a distance, he began to count his money; and then he let it drop into the sea, as if unintentionally, and began to bewail his loss; but others say that he said besides, that it was better for the money to be lost for the sake of Aristippus, than Aristippus for the sake of his money. On one occasion, when Dionysius asked him why he had come, he said, to give others a share of what he had, and to receive a share of what he had not; but some report that his answer was, “When I wanted wisdom, I went to Socrates; but now that I want money, I have come to you.”