Top 100 Quotes About Diogenes
#1. He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, To get practice in being refused.
Diogenes
#2. Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words.
Diogenes Laertius
#3. Lust is a strong tower of mischief, and hath in it many defenders, as neediness, anger, paleness, discord, love, and longing.
Diogenes
#4. To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, Come, see that you obey orders.
Diogenes
#5. When some one reminded him that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, he said, And I sentenced them to stay at home.
Diogenes Of Sinope
#6. On being asked by someone how he could become famous, Diogenes responded: 'By worrying as little as possible about fame
Diogenes
#7. In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes
#8. Were I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret.
Charles Lamb
#9. Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases.
Diogenes
#10. The question was put to him, what hope is; and his answer was, "The dream of a waking man."
Diogenes
#12. There is only a finger's difference between a wise man and a fool.
Diogenes
#13. When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, To know one's self. And what was easy, To advise another.
Diogenes Laertius
#14. What slave work do you want me to do for you?" asked Diogenes when he had been bought.
"Be a teacher to my children," answered Xeniades with the insanity that matched the wisdom of Diogenes.
Tomichan Matheikal
#15. He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of " dog ." "It is you who are dogs," cried he, "when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast.
Diogenes
#16. To arrive at perfection, a man should have very sincere friends or inveterate enemies; because he would be made sensible of his good or ill conduct, either by the censures of the one or the admonitions of the other.
Diogenes
#17. We need to stop the little girl," said Richard "pass me that shotgun.
Kim Newman
#18. No man is hurt but by himself," said Diogenes.
Maxwell Maltz
#19. When he saw the child of some prostitute throw stones at a crowd, Diogenes shouted to him, "Take care that you don't hit your father!
Luis E. Navia
#20. Of what am I guilty," once exclaimed Antisthenes, "that I should be praised?
Diogenes Laertius
#21. To become self-educated you should condemn yourself for all those things that you would criticize others.
Diogenes
#22. The mountains too, at a distance, appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand they are rough.
Diogenes Laertius
#23. The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.
Diogenes
#24. Boasting, like gilded armour, is very different inside from outside.
Diogenes
#25. Asked where he came from, he said, I am a citizen of the world .
Diogenes
#26. Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said: To know one's self.
Diogenes Laertius
#27. Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
#28. He has the most who is most content with the least.
Diogenes
#29. The chief good is the suspension of the judgment [especially negative judgement], which tranquillity of mind follows like its shadow.
Diogenes
#30. A vine bears three grapes, the first of pleasure, the second of drunkenness, and the third of repentance.
Diogenes Laertius
#31. What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.
Diogenes
#32. Tis only in the future you can prove your true worth.
Emmuska Orczy
#33. but because she had at once classed him in that catalogue of bipeds whom Plato endeavors to withdraw from the appellation of men, and whom Diogenes designated as animals upon two legs without feathers. Unfortunately,
Alexandre Dumas
#34. When Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.
Henry Hazlitt
#36. Modesty is the color of virtue.
Diogenes
#37. That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.
Diogenes Laertius
#38. Hers was the perfect love that dwells on the other's happiness, and not on its own. She knew that, though for the time being he would find bliss and oblivion in her arms, he would soon repine in inactivity whilst others fought for that which he held sublime.
Emmuska Orczy
#39. I am called a dog because I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.
Diogenes
#40. If I lack awareness, then why should I care what happens to me when I am dead?
Diogenes
#41. As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.
Diogenes
#42. Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them.
Diogenes
#44. I threw my cup away when I saw a child drinking from his hands at the trough.
Diogenes
#45. 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
#46. Nothing can be produced out of nothing.
Diogenes
#47. We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.
Diogenes Laertius
#48. Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance and shimmy, and you've got an audience!
Diogenes Laertius
#49. When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine .
Diogenes
#50. It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.
Diogenes Of Sinope
#51. It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.
Diogenes
#52. Alexander the Great found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained, I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.
Diogenes Of Sinope
#53. I like best the wine drunk at the cost of others.
Diogenes
#54. We are more curious about the meaning of dreams than about things we see when awake.
Diogenes Laertius
#55. From Hunayn ibn-Ishak (Diogenes,8), we learn about his view of women and education: when he saw a man teaching a girl how to read and write, he advised him not to make a bad thing even worse.
Luis E. Navia
#56. 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
#57. Let us not unlearn what we have already learned
Diogenes
#58. One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, A child has beaten me in plainness of living.
Diogenes
#59. People who talk well but do nothing are like musical intruments; the sound is all they have to offer.
Diogenes
#60. To one who asked what was the proper time for lunch, he said, If a rich man, when you will; if a poor man, when you can.
Diogenes Of Sinope
#61. To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, That for which other people pay.
Diogenes
#62. We have complicated every simple gift of the gods.
Diogenes
#64. How miraculous it was, noted Diogenes, that whenever one felt that sort of urge, one could readily masturbate. But conversely how disheartening that one could not simply rub one's stomach when hungry.
David Markson
#65. The vine bears three kinds of grapes: the first of pleasure, the second of intoxication, the third of disgust.
Diogenes
#67. Fools! You think of "god" as a sentient being. God is the word used to represent a force. This force created nothing, it just helps things along. It does not answer prayers, although it may make you think of a way to solve a problem. It has the power to influence you, but not decide for you.
Diogenes
#69. I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.
Diogenes Of Sinope
#70. Every age, and especially our own, stands in need of a Diogenes; but the difficulty is in finding men who have the courage to be one, and men who have the patience to endure one.
Jean Le Rond D'Alembert
#71. Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.
Diogenes
#72. Virtue cannot dwell with wealth either in a city or in a house.
Diogenes
#73. When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves .
Diogenes
#74. He was a member of the Diogenes Club, to which he had been nominated by one of his more peculiar acquaintances, a Government man whose intellectual capacity was matched only by his physical corpulence.
K.J. Charles
#75. Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down."
Diogenes
#78. Self-taught poverty is a help toward philosophy , for the things which philosophy attempts to teach by reasoning , poverty forces us to practice .
Diogenes
#79. Chilo advised, "not to speak evil of the dead."
Diogenes
#80. Solon used to say that speech was the image of actions; ... that laws were like cobwebs, - for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; while if it were something weightier, it broke through them and was off.
Diogenes
#81. The health and vigor necessary for the practice of what is good, depend equally on both mind and body.
Diogenes
#82. We come into the world alone and we die alone. Why, in life, should we be any less alone?
Diogenes
#83. When people laughed at him because he walked backward beneath the portico, he said to them: Aren't you ashamed, you who walk backward along the whole path of existence, and blame me for walking backward along the path of the promenade?
Diogenes Of Sinope
#84. It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.
Diogenes Of Sinope
#85. 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
#86. Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?
Diogenes
#88. When two friends part they should lock up each other's secrets and exchange keys. The truly noble mind has no resentments.
Diogenes
#89. The great thieves lead away the little thief.
Diogenes
#90. If you are to be kept right, you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies. The one will warn you, the other will expose you.
Diogenes
#91. The sacrifice of Diogenes to all the gods.
Diogenes
#94. The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.
Diogenes
#95. Young men not ought to marry yet, and old men never ought to marry at all.
Diogenes
#96. When Diogenes was asked how to live with the truth, he answered: Do as with fyre: do not go so exceadyngely close that it will burn, but do not go so farre away or the clode will reache you.
Evgenij Vodolazkin
#97. 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
#98. The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft one of the queerest men. He's always there from quarter to five to twenty to eight. It's six now, so if you care for a stroll this beautiful evening I shall be very happy to introduce you to two curiosities.
Arthur Conan Doyle
#100. All things are in common among friends.
Diogenes
