Top 100 Quotes About Diogenes
#1. To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, Come, see that you obey orders.
Diogenes
#2. On being asked by someone how he could become famous, Diogenes responded: 'By worrying as little as possible about fame
Diogenes
#3. 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
#4. Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases.
Diogenes
#5. 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
#7. 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
#8. 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
#9. 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
#10. 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
#11. 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
#12. 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
#13. 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
#14. 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
#15. 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
#16. 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
#17. When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves .
Diogenes
#18. 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
#20. The sacrifice of Diogenes to all the gods.
Diogenes
#21. 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
#22. 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
#23. Which of us would not have been happy under Alexander's radiant gaze? But Diogenes frantically begged him to move out of the way of the sun. That tub was full of ghosts.
Franz Kafka
#24. Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious; there are just as many vices to virtue as there are holes in the mantle of Diogenes.
Victor Hugo
#25. I am Diogenes the Dog. I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy and bite scoundrels.
Diogenes
#27. The benevolence of wrapping the partridge in a vine leaf brings out its quality, just as the barrel of Diogenes brought forth the qualities of the great thinker.
Emmanuel Des Essarts
#28. True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.
Charles Caleb Colton
#29. ...mention chess and most people's eyes glaze over. They think of two old geezers, one of whom has died but no one has noticed, in overstuff armchairs at the Diogenes Club.
Charles Krauthammer
#30. Diogenes found more rest in his tub than Alexander on his throne.
Francis Quarles
#31. The request of industry to government is as modest as that of Diogenes to Alexander: Get out of my light.
Jeremy Bentham
#32. Though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might be, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato.
Jonathan Swift
#33. Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, Here is Plato's man.
Diogenes
#34. Perdiccas threatened to put him to death unless he came to him, "That's nothing wonderful," Diogenes said, "for a beetle or a tarantula would do the same.
Diogenes
#35. Diogenes carried a bowl with him for years, but one day saw a man drinking from his cupped palm and declared, 'I have been a fool, burdened all these years by the weight of a bowl when a perfectly good vessel lay at the end of my wrist.
Christopher Moore
#36. Diogenes was asked what wine he liked best; and he answered as I would have done when he said, "Somebody else's".
Michel De Montaigne
#37. The sordid meal of the Cynics contributed neither to their tranquillity nor to their modesty. Pride went with Diogenes into his tub; and there he had the presumption to command Alexander the haughtiest of all men.
Henry Home, Lord Kames
#38. He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, To get practice in being refused.
Diogenes
#39. Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words.
Diogenes Laertius
#40. Lust is a strong tower of mischief, and hath in it many defenders, as neediness, anger, paleness, discord, love, and longing.
Diogenes
#41. 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
#42. In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes
#43. The question was put to him, what hope is; and his answer was, "The dream of a waking man."
Diogenes
#45. There is only a finger's difference between a wise man and a fool.
Diogenes
#46. When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, To know one's self. And what was easy, To advise another.
Diogenes Laertius
#47. 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
#48. 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
#49. We need to stop the little girl," said Richard "pass me that shotgun.
Kim Newman
#50. Of what am I guilty," once exclaimed Antisthenes, "that I should be praised?
Diogenes Laertius
#51. To become self-educated you should condemn yourself for all those things that you would criticize others.
Diogenes
#52. The mountains too, at a distance, appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand they are rough.
Diogenes Laertius
#53. The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.
Diogenes
#54. Boasting, like gilded armour, is very different inside from outside.
Diogenes
#55. Asked where he came from, he said, I am a citizen of the world .
Diogenes
#56. Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said: To know one's self.
Diogenes Laertius
#57. He has the most who is most content with the least.
Diogenes
#58. The chief good is the suspension of the judgment [especially negative judgement], which tranquillity of mind follows like its shadow.
Diogenes
#59. A vine bears three grapes, the first of pleasure, the second of drunkenness, and the third of repentance.
Diogenes Laertius
#60. What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.
Diogenes
#61. Tis only in the future you can prove your true worth.
Emmuska Orczy
#63. Modesty is the color of virtue.
Diogenes
#64. That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.
Diogenes Laertius
#65. 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
#66. 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
#67. If I lack awareness, then why should I care what happens to me when I am dead?
Diogenes
#68. 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
#69. Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them.
Diogenes
#71. I threw my cup away when I saw a child drinking from his hands at the trough.
Diogenes
#72. Nothing can be produced out of nothing.
Diogenes
#73. We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.
Diogenes Laertius
#74. Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance and shimmy, and you've got an audience!
Diogenes Laertius
#75. It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.
Diogenes Of Sinope
#76. It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.
Diogenes
#77. I like best the wine drunk at the cost of others.
Diogenes
#78. We are more curious about the meaning of dreams than about things we see when awake.
Diogenes Laertius
#79. 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
#80. Let us not unlearn what we have already learned
Diogenes
#81. 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
#82. People who talk well but do nothing are like musical intruments; the sound is all they have to offer.
Diogenes
#83. 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
#84. To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, That for which other people pay.
Diogenes
#85. We have complicated every simple gift of the gods.
Diogenes
#87. The vine bears three kinds of grapes: the first of pleasure, the second of intoxication, the third of disgust.
Diogenes
#89. 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
#91. 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
#92. Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.
Diogenes
#93. Virtue cannot dwell with wealth either in a city or in a house.
Diogenes
#94. Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down."
Diogenes
#97. Self-taught poverty is a help toward philosophy , for the things which philosophy attempts to teach by reasoning , poverty forces us to practice .
Diogenes
#98. Chilo advised, "not to speak evil of the dead."
Diogenes
#99. 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
#100. The health and vigor necessary for the practice of what is good, depend equally on both mind and body.
Diogenes
