....The fame of Antisthenes was surpassed by that of his disciple
Diogenes, "a young man from Sinope, on the Euxine, whom he did not
take to at first sight; the son of a disreputable money-changer who
had been sent to prison for defacing the coinage. Antisthenes ordered
the lad away, but he paid no attention; he beat him with his stick,
but he never moved. He wanted 'wisdom,' and saw that Antisthenes had
it to give. His aim in life was to do as his father had done, to
'deface the coinage,' but on a much larger scale. He would deface all
the coinage current in the world. Every conventional stamp was false.
The men stamped as generals and kings; the things stamped as honour
and wisdom and happiness and riches; all were base metal with lying
superscription."

He decided to live like a dog, and was therefore called a "cynic,"
which means "canine." He rejected all conventions--whether of religion,
of manners, of dress, of housing, of food, or of decency...