XVI. For he was very eminent for his power of attracting friendships; and among other things, if ever he heard that any one had any community of symbols with him, he at once made him a companion and a friend. XVII. Now, what he called his symbols were such as these. “Do not stir the fire with a sword.” “Do not sit down on a bushel.” “Do not devour your heart.” “Do not aid men in discarding a burden, but in increasing one.” “Always have your bed packed up.” “Do not bear the image of a God on a ring.” “Efface the traces of a pot in the ashes.” “Do not wipe a seat with a lamp.” [...] “When you are travelling abroad, look not back at your own borders.” Now the precept not to stir fire with a sword meant, not to provoke the anger or swelling pride of powerful men; not to violate the beam of the balance meant, not to transgress fairness and justice; not to sit on a bushel is to have an equal care for the present and for the future, for by the bushel is meant one’s daily food. By not devouring one’s heart, he intended to show that we ought not to waste away our souls with grief and sorrow. In the precept that a man when travelling abroad should not turn his eyes back, he recommended those who were departing from life not to be desirous to live, and not to be too much attracted by the pleasures here on earth. — Diogenes Laertius, *Lives of Eminent Philosophers*, Book VIII, Sections XVI–XVII, trans. C. D. Yonge (1853). **Surface Gloss:** Pythagoras used enigmatic ritual maxims called *symbola* as recognition tokens among initiates; beneath their bizarre literal surface (not poking fire with a sword, not sitting on a grain-measure) lay coded ethical and thanatological rules. **The Broken-Tally Maxim (Bizarre Rind, Hard Rule):** Encode your group's core operating rules not as flat corporate slogans ("Be prepared," "Don't provoke bosses," "Let go of sunk costs"), which slide off the brain, but as concrete, physical, slightly bizarre prohibitions ("Keep your bedsheets rolled," "Never poke fire with a blade," "Smooth the ash when you lift the pot"). They act simultaneously as unforgettable memory hooks and instant shibboleths to spot insiders.
— In our words · Source: Lives of Eminent Philosophers (Diogenes Laertius)