The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
afraid, a dog does not eat beetroot.” Being once asked about a debauched
boy, as to what country he came from, he said, “He is a Tegean.”[72]
Seeing an unskilful wrestler professing to heal a man he said, “What
are you about, are you in hopes now to overthrow those who formerly
conquered you?” On one occasion he saw the son of a courtesan throwing
a stone at a crowd, and said to him, “Take care, lest you hit your
father.” When a boy showed him a sword that he had received from one to
whom he had done some discreditable service, he told him, “The sword is
a good sword, but the handle is infamous.” And when some people were
praising a man who had given him something, he said to them, “And do not
you praise me who was worthy to receive it?” He was asked by some one
to give him back his cloak; but he replied, “If you gave it me, it is
mine; and if you only lent it me, I am using it.” A supposititious son
(ὑποβολιμαῖος) of somebody once said to him, that he had gold in his
cloak; “No doubt,” said he, “that is the very reason why I sleep with
it under my head (ὑποβεβλημένος).” When he was asked what advantage he
had derived from philosophy, he replied, “If no other, at least this,
that I am prepared for every kind of fortune.” The question was put to
him what countryman he was, and he replied, “A Citizen of the world.”
Some men were sacrificing to the Gods to prevail on them to send them
sons, and he said, “And do you not sacrifice to procure sons of a
particular character?” Once he was asking the president of a society for
a contribution,[73] and said to him:—
“Spoil all the rest, but keep your hands from Hector.”
He used to say that courtesans were the queens of kings; for that they
asked them for whatever they chose. When the Athenians had voted that
Alexander was Bacchus, he said to them, “Vote, too, that I am Serapis.”
When a man reproached him for going into unclean places, he said, “The
sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.” When
supping in a temple, as some dirty loaves were set before him, he took
them up and threw them away, saying that nothing dirty ought to come into
a temple; and when some one said to him, “You philosophize without being
possessed of any knowledge,” he said, “If I only pretend to wisdom, that
is philosophizing.” A man once brought him a boy, and said that he was
a very clever child, and one of an admirable disposition. “What, then,”
said Diogenes, “does he want of me?” He used to say, that those who utter
virtuous sentiments but do not do them, are no better than harps, for
that a harp has no hearing or feeling. Once he was going into a theatre
while every one else was coming out of it; and when asked why he did so,
“It is,” said he, “what I have been doing all my life.” Once when he saw
a young man putting on effeminate airs, he said to him, “Are you not
ashamed to have worse plans for yourself than nature had for you? for she
has made you a man, but you are trying to force yourself to be a woman.”
When he saw an ignorant man tuning a psaltery, he said to him, “Are you
not ashamed to be arranging proper sounds on a wooden instrument, and
not arranging your soul to a proper life?” When a man said to him, “I am
not calculated for philosophy,” he said, “Why then do you live, if you
have no desire to live properly?” To a man who treated his father with
contempt, he said, “Are you not ashamed to despise him to whom you owe
it that you have it in your power to give yourself airs at all?” Seeing
a handsome young man chattering in an unseemly manner, he said, “Are
you not ashamed to draw a sword cut of lead out of a scabbard of ivory?”
Being once reproached for drinking in a vintner’s shop, he said, “I have
my hair cut, too, in a barber’s.” At another time, he was attacked for
having accepted a cloak from Antipater, but he replied:—
“Refuse not thou to heed
The gifts which from the mighty Gods proceed.”[74]
A man once struck him with a broom, and said, “Take care,” so he struck
him in return with his staff, and said, “Take care.”
He once said to a man who was addressing anxious entreaties to a
courtesan, “What can you wish to obtain, you wretched man, that you
had not better be disappointed in?” Seeing a man reeking all over with
unguents, he said to him, “Have a care, lest the fragrance of your head
give a bad odour to your life.” One of his sayings was, that servants
serve their masters, and that wicked men are the slaves of their
appetites. Being asked why slaves were called ἀνδράποδα, he replied,
“Because they have the feet of men (τοὺς πόδας ἀνδρῶν), and a soul such
as you who are asking this question.” He once asked a profligate fellow
for a mina; and when he put the question to him, why he asked others for
an obol, and him for a mina, he said, “Because I hope to get something
from the others another time, but the Gods alone know whether I shall
ever extract anything from you again.” Once he was reproached for asking
favours, while Plato never asked for any; and he said:—
“He asks as well as I do, but he does it
Bending his head, that no one else may hear.”
One day he saw an unskilful archer shooting; so he went and sat down by
the target, saying, “Now I shall be out of harm’s way.” He used to say,
that those who were in love were disappointed in regard of the pleasure
they expected. When he was asked whether death was an evil, he replied,
“How can that be an evil which we do not feel when it is present?” When
Alexander was once standing by him, and saying, “Do not you fear me?” He
replied, “No; for what are you, a good or an evil?” And as he said that
he was good, “Who, then,” said Diogenes, “fears the good?” He used to
say, that education was, for the young sobriety, for the old comfort, for
the poor riches, and for the rich an ornament. When Didymus the adulterer
was once trying to cure the eye of a young girl (κόρης), he said, “Take
care, lest when you are curing the eye of the maiden, you do not hurt the
pupil.”[75] A man once said to him, that his friends laid plots against
him; “What then,” said he, “are you to do, if you must look upon both
your friends and enemies in the same light?”
On one occasion he was asked, what was the most excellent thing among
men; and he said, “Freedom of speech.” He went once into a school, and
saw many statues of the Muses, but very few pupils, and said, “Gods,
and all my good schoolmasters, you have plenty of pupils.” He was in
the habit of doing everything in public, whether in respect of Venus or
Ceres; and he used to put his conclusions in this way to people: “If
there is nothing absurd in dining, then it is not absurd to dine in the
market-place. But it is not absurd to dine, therefore it is not absurd to
dine in the market-place.” And as he was continually doing manual work in
public, he said one day, “Would that by rubbing my belly I could get rid
of hunger.” Other sayings also are attributed to him, which it would take
a long time to enumerate, there is such a multiplicity of them.
He used to say, that there were two kinds of exercise: that, namely, of
the mind and that of the body; and that the latter of these created in
the mind such quick and agile phantasies at the time of its performance,
as very much facilitated the practice of virtue; but that one was
imperfect without the other, since the health and vigour necessary for
the practice of what is good, depend equally on both mind and body. And
he used to allege as proofs of this, and of the ease which practice
imparts to acts of virtue, that people could see that in the case of
mere common working trades, and other employments of that kind, the
artisans arrived at no inconsiderable accuracy by constant practice;
and that any one may see how much one flute player, or one wrestler, is
superior to another, by his own continued practice. And that if these
men transferred the same training to their minds they would not labour
in a profitless or imperfect manner. He used to say also, that there was
nothing whatever in life which could be brought to perfection without
practice, and that that alone was able to overcome every obstacle; that,
therefore, as we ought to repudiate all useless toils, and to apply
ourselves to useful labours, and to live happily, we are only unhappy in
consequence of most exceeding folly. For the very contempt of pleasure,
if we only inure ourselves to it, is very pleasant; and just as they who
are accustomed to live luxuriously, are brought very unwillingly to adopt
the contrary system; so they who have been originally inured to that
opposite system, feel a sort of pleasure in the contempt of pleasure.
This used to be the language which he held, and he used to show in
practice, really altering men’s habits, and deferring in all things
rather to the principles of nature than to those of law; saying that he
was adopting the same fashion of life as Hercules had, preferring nothing
in the world to liberty; and saying that everything belonged to the wise,
and advancing arguments such as I mentioned just above. For instance:
every thing belongs to the Gods; and the Gods are friends to the wise;
and all the property of friends is held in common; therefore everything
belongs to the wise. He also argued about the law, that without it there
is no possibility of a constitution being maintained; for without a
city there can be nothing orderly, but a city is an orderly thing; and
without a city there can be no law; therefore law is order. And he played
in the same manner with the topics of noble birth, and reputation, and
all things of that kind, saying that they were all veils, as it were,
for wickedness; and that that was the only proper constitution which
consisted in order. Another of his doctrines was that all women ought
to be possessed in common; and he said that marriage was a nullity, and
that the proper way would be for every man to live with her whom he
could persuade to agree with him. And on the same principle he said,
that all people’s sons ought to belong to every one in common; and there
was nothing intolerable in the idea of taking anything out of a temple,
or eating any animal whatever, and that there was no impiety in tasting
even human flesh; as is plain from the habits of foreign nations; and he
said that this principle might be correctly extended to every case and
every people. For he said that in reality everything was a combination
of all things. For that in bread there was meat, and in vegetables there
was bread, and so there were some particles of all other bodies in
everything, communicating by invisible passages and evaporating.
VII. And he explains this theory of his clearly in the Thyestes, if
indeed the tragedies attributed to him are really his composition, and
not rather the work of Philiscus, of Ægina, his intimate friend, or
of Pasiphon, the son of Lucian, who is stated by Phavorinus, in his
Universal History, to have written them after Diogenes’ death.
VIII. Music and geometry, and astronomy, and all things of that kind, he
neglected, as useless and unnecessary. But he was a man very happy in
meeting arguments, as is plain from what we have already said.
IX. And he bore being sold with a most magnanimous spirit. For as he
was sailing to Ægina, and was taken prisoner by some pirates, under the
command of Scirpalus, he was carried off to Crete and sold; and when
the crier asked him what art he understood, he said, “That of governing
men.” And presently pointing out a Corinthian, very carefully dressed,
(the same Xeniades whom we have mentioned before), he said, “Sell me to
that man; for he wants a master.” Accordingly Xeniades bought him and
carried him away to Corinth; and then he made him tutor of his sons,