Diogenes Laertius Quotes

#1. Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words.

Diogenes Laertius

#2. Time is the most valuable thing that a man can spend.

Diogenes Laertius

#3. When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, To know one's self. And what was easy, To advise another.

Diogenes Laertius

#4. Of what am I guilty," once exclaimed Antisthenes, "that I should be praised?

Diogenes Laertius

#5. The mountains too, at a distance, appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand they are rough.

Diogenes Laertius

#6. Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said: To know one's self.

Diogenes Laertius

#7. A vine bears three grapes, the first of pleasure, the second of drunkenness, and the third of repentance.

Diogenes Laertius

#8. That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.

Diogenes Laertius

#9. Time is the image of eternity.

Diogenes Laertius

#10. One day a man invited him into a richly furnished house, saying 'be careful not to spit on the floor.' Diogenes, who needed to spit, spat in his face, exclaiming that it was the only dirty place he could find where spitting was permitted.

Diogenes Laertius

#11. We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.

Diogenes Laertius

#12. Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance and shimmy, and you've got an audience!

Diogenes Laertius

#13. We are more curious about the meaning of dreams than about things we see when awake.

Diogenes Laertius

#14. As to the gods, I have no means of knowing either that they exist or do not exist. For many are the obstacles that impede knowledge, both the obscurity of the question and the shortness of human life.

Diogenes Laertius

#15. Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he lay dying in a foreign land, "The descent to hell is the same from every place.

Diogenes Laertius

#16. Stand a little less between me and the sun. Diogenes and I.

Diogenes Laertius

#17. Step out of my sunlight.

Diogenes Laertius

#18. The tired ox treads with a firmer step

Diogenes Laertius

#19. He used to say that it was better to have one friend of great value than many friends who were good for nothing.

Diogenes Laertius

#20. One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings.

Diogenes Laertius

#21. Whichever you do, you will repent it.

Diogenes Laertius

#22. Why not whip the teacher when the student misbehaves?

Diogenes Laertius

#23. Thales said there was no difference between life and death. Why, then, said some one to him, do not you die? Because, said he, it does make no difference.

Diogenes Laertius

#24. When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, "Not to unlearn what you have learned!"

Diogenes Laertius

#25. Man is the most intelligent of animals
and the most silly.

Diogenes Laertius

#26. He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend together; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest.

Diogenes Laertius

#27. Courage, my boy! that is the complexion of virtue.

Diogenes Laertius