Drink to me with your eyes alone…. And if you will, take the cup to your lips and fill it with kisses, and give it so to me. - Philostratus

What induces you, he <nowiki>[</nowiki>] said, "Apollonius, to dress yourself differently from everybody else, and to wear this peculiar and singular garb?" "Because," said Apollonius, "the earth which feeds me also clothes me, and I do not like to bother the poor animals."

The votaries of Pythagoras of Samos have this story to tell of him, that he was not an Ionian at all, but that, once on a time in Troy, he had been Euphorbus, and that he had come to life after death, but had died as the songs of Homer relate. And they say that he declined to wear apparel made from dead animal products and, to guard his purity, abstained from all flesh diet, and from the offering of animals in sacrifice. For that he would not stain the altars with blood; nay, rather the honey-cake and frankincense and the hymn of praise, these they say were the offerings made to the Gods by this man, who realized that they welcome such tribute more than they do the hecatombs note and the knife laid upon the sacrificial basket.

Apollonius … explained his motive in practicing wisdom, declaring that the sole use he had made of it was to gain knowledge of the gods and an understanding of human affairs, for that the difficulty of knowing another man exceeded that of knowing oneself.