The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
When a young man was one day making a display of himself, he, having
filled the bosom of his robe with lupins, began to eat them; and when the
multitude looked at him, he said, “that he marvelled at their leaving the
young man to look at him.” And when a man, who was very superstitious,
said to him, “With one blow I will break your head;” “And I,” he replied,
“with one sneeze will make you tremble.” When Hegesias entreated him to
lend him one of his books, he said, “You are a silly fellow, Hegesias,
for you will not take painted figs, but real ones; and yet you overlook
the genuine practice of virtue, and seek for what is merely written.”
A man once reproached him with his banishment, and his answer was,
“You wretched man, that is what made me a philosopher.” And when, on
another occasion, some one said to him, “The people of Sinope condemned
you to banishment,” he replied, “And I condemned them to remain where
they were.” Once he saw a man who had been victor at the Olympic games,
feeding (νέμοντα) sheep, and he said to him, “You have soon come across
my friend from the Olympic games, to the Nemean.” When he was asked why
athletes are insensible to pain, he said, “Because they are built up of
pork and beef.”
He once asked for a statue; and being questioned as to his reason for
doing so, he said, “I am practising disappointment.” Once he was begging
of some one (for he did this at first out of actual want), he said, “If
you have given to any one else, give also to me; and if you have never
given to any one, then begin with me.” On one occasion, he was asked
by the tyrant, “What sort of brass was the best for a statue?” and he
replied, “That of which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton are
made.” When he was asked how Dionysius treats his friends, he said,
“Like bags; those which are full he hangs up, and those which are empty
he throws away.” A man who was lately married put an inscription on his
house, “Hercules Callinicus, the son of Jupiter, lives here; let no evil
enter.” And so Diogenes wrote in addition, “An alliance is made after the
war is over.” He used to say that covetousness was the metropolis of all
evils. Seeing on one occasion a profligate man in an inn eating olives,
he said, “If you had dined thus, you would not have supped thus.” One of
his apophthegms was, that good men were the images of the Gods; another,
that love was the business of those who had nothing to do. When he was
asked what was miserable in life, he answered, “An indigent old man.” And
when the question was put to him, what beast inflicts the worst bite, he
said, “Of wild beasts the sycophant, and of tame animals the flatterer.”
On one occasion he saw two Centaurs very badly painted; he said, “Which
of the two is the worst?”[62] He used to say that a speech, the object of
which was solely to please, was a honeyed halter. He called the belly,
the Charybdis of life. Having heard once that Didymon the adulterer,
had been caught in the fact, he said, “He deserves to be hung by his
name.”[63] When the question was put to him, why gold is of a pale
colour, he said, “Because it has so many people plotting against it.”
When he saw a woman in a litter, he said, “The cage is not suited to the
animal.” And seeing a runaway slave sitting on a well, he said, “My boy,
take care you do not fall in.” Another time, he saw a little boy who
was a stealer of clothes from the baths, and said, “Are you going for
unguents, (ἐπ’ ἀλειμμάτιον), or for other garments (ἐπ’ ἄλλ’ ἱμάτιον).”
Seeing some women hanging on olive trees, he said, “I wish every tree
bore similar fruit.” At another time, he saw a clothes stealer, and
addressed him thus:—
“What moves thee, say, when sleep has clos’d the sight,
To roam the silent fields in dead of night?
Art thou some wretch by hopes of plunder led,
Through heaps of carnage to despoil the dead.”[64]
When he was asked whether he had any girl or boy to wait on him, he said,
“No.” And as his questioner asked further, “If then you die, who will
bury you?” He replied, “Whoever wants my house.” Seeing a handsome youth
sleeping without any protection, he nudged him, and said, “Wake up:—
“Mix’d with the vulgar shall thy fate be found,
Pierc’d in the back, a vile dishonest wound.”[65]
And he addressed a man who was buying delicacies at a great expense:—
“Not long, my son, will you on earth remain,
If such your dealings.”[66]
When Plato was discoursing about his “ideas,” and using the nouns
“tableness” and “cupness;” “I, O Plato!” interrupted Diogenes, “see a
table and a cup, but I see no tableness or cupness.” Plato made answer,
“That is natural enough, for you have eyes, by which a cup and a table
are contemplated; but you have not intellect, by which tableness and
cupness are seen.”
On one occasion, he was asked by a certain person, “What sort of a man, O
Diogenes, do you think Socrates?” and he said, “A madman.” Another time,
the question was put to him, when a man ought to marry? and his reply
was, “Young men ought not to marry yet, and old men never ought to marry
at all.” When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on
the head? he replied, “A helmet.” Seeing a youth smartening himself up
very carefully, he said to him, “If you are doing that for men, you are
miserable; and if for women, you are profligate.” Once he saw a youth
blushing, and addressed him, “Courage, my boy, that is the complexion of
virtue.” Having once listened to two lawyers, he condemned them both;
saying, “That the one had stolen the thing in question, and that the
other had not lost it.” When asked what wine he liked to drink, he said,
“That which belongs to another.” A man said to him one day, “Many people
laugh at you.” “But I,” he replied, “am not laughed down.” When a man
said to him, that it was a bad thing to live; “Not to live,” said he,
“but to live badly.” When some people were advising him to make search
for a slave who had run away, he said, “It would be a very absurd thing
for Manes to be able to live without Diogenes, but for Diogenes not to be
able to live without Manes.” When he was dining on olives, a cheese-cake
was brought in, on which he threw the olive away, saying:—
Keep well aloof, O stranger, from all tyrants.[67]
And presently he added:—
He drove the olive off (μαστίξεν δ’ ἐλάαν).[68]
When he was asked what sort of a dog he was, he replied, “When hungry,
I am a dog of Melita; when satisfied, a Molossian; a sort which most of
those who praise, do not like to take out hunting with them, because
of the labour of keeping up with them; and in like manner, you cannot
associate with me, from fear of the pain I give you.” The question was
put to him, whether wise men ate cheese-cakes, and he replied, “They eat
everything, just as the rest of mankind.” When asked why people give
to beggars and not to philosophers, he said, “Because they think it
possible that they themselves may become lame and blind, but they do not
expect ever to turn out philosophers.” He once begged of a covetous man,
and as he was slow to give, he said, “Man, I am asking you for something
to maintain me (εἰς τροφὴν) and not to bury me (εἰς ταφὴν).” When some
one reproached him for having tampered with the coinage, he said, “There
was a time when I was such a person as you are now; but there never was
when you were such as I am now, and never will be.” And to another person
who reproached him on the same grounds, he said, “There were times when I
did what I did not wish to, but that is not the case now.” When he went
to Myndus, he saw some very large gates, but the city was a small one,
and so he said, “Oh men of Myndus, shut your gates, lest your city should
steal out.” On one occasion, he saw a man who had been detected stealing
purple, and so he said:—
A purple death, and mighty fate overtook him.[69]
When Craterus entreated him to come and visit him, he said, “I would
rather lick up salt at Athens, than enjoy a luxurious table with
Craterus.” On one occasion, he met Anaximenes, the orator, who was a fat
man, and thus accosted him; “Pray give us, who are poor, some of your
belly; for by so doing you will be relieved yourself, and you will assist
us.” And once, when he was discussing some point, Diogenes held up a
piece of salt fish, and drew off the attention of his hearers; and as
Anaximenes was indignant at this, he said, “See, one pennyworth of salt
fish has put an end to the lecture of Anaximenes.” Being once reproached
for eating in the market-place, he made answer, “I did, for it was in
the market-place that I was hungry.” Some authors also attribute the
following repartee to him. Plato saw him washing vegetables, and so,
coming up to him, he quietly accosted him thus, “If you had paid court
to Dionysius, you would not have been washing vegetables.” “And,” he
replied, with equal quietness, “if you had washed vegetables, you would
never have paid court to Dionysius.” When a man said to him once, “Most
people laugh at you;” “And very likely,” he replied, “the asses laugh at
them; but they do not regard the asses, neither do I regard them.” Once
he saw a youth studying philosophy, and said to him, “Well done; inasmuch
as you are leading those who admire your person to contemplate the beauty
of your mind.”
A certain person was admiring the offerings in the temple at
Samothrace,[70] and he said to him, “They would have been much more
numerous, if those who were lost had offered them instead of those who
were saved;” but some attribute this speech to Diagoras the Melian. Once
he saw a handsome youth going to a banquet, and said to him, “You will
come back worse (χείρων);” and when he the next day after the banquet
said to him, “I have left the banquet, and was no worse for it;” he
replied, “You were not Chiron, but Eurytion.”[71] He was begging once
of a very ill-tempered man, and as he said to him, “If you can persuade
me, I will give you something;” he replied, “If I could persuade you, I
would beg you to hang yourself.” He was on one occasion returning from
Lacedæmon to Athens; and when some one asked him, “Whither are you going,
and whence do you come?” he said, “I am going from the men’s apartments
to the women’s.” Another time he was returning from the Olympic games,
and when some one asked him whether there had been a great multitude
there, he said, “A great multitude, but very few men.” He used to say
that debauched men resembled figs growing on a precipice; the fruit of
which is not tasted by men, but devoured by crows and vultures. When
Phryne had dedicated a golden statue of Venus at Delphi, he wrote upon
it, “From the profligacy of the Greeks.”
Once Alexander the Great came and stood by him, and said, “I am
Alexander, the great king.” “And I,” said he, “am Diogenes the dog.” And
when he was asked to what actions of his it was owing that he was called
a dog, he said, “Because I fawn upon those who give me anything, and bark
at those who give me nothing, and bite the rogues.” On one occasion he
was gathering some of the fruit of a fig-tree, and when the man who was
guarding it told him a man hung himself on this tree the other day. “I,
then,” said he, “will now purify it.” Once he saw a man who had been a
conqueror at the Olympic games looking very often at a courtesan; “Look,”
said he, “at that warlike ram, who is taken prisoner by the first girl he
meets.” One of his sayings was, that good-looking courtesans were like
poisoned mead.
On one occasion he was eating his dinner in the market-place, and the
bystanders kept constantly calling out “Dog;” but he said, “It is you
who are the dogs, who stand around me while I am at dinner.” When two
effeminate fellows were getting out of his way, he said, “Do not be