Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Aristippus was by birth a Cyrenaean, and had come to Athens, as Aeschines says, drawn by the fame of Socrates. Having practiced as a sophist, as Phanias of Eresus the Peripatetic says, he was the first of the Socratics to charge fees and to send money to his teacher. And once, having sent him twenty minas, he received them back, Socrates saying that his daemon did not permit him to accept them; for Socrates was vexed at this. Xenophon also was ill-disposed toward him; wherefore he put into the mouth of Socrates the discourse directed against pleasure as an attack upon Aristippus. Furthermore, Theodorus also censured him in his work On Sects, as did Plato in the dialogue On the Soul, as we have mentioned elsewhere.

​He was adaptable to place, to time, and to person, and capable of playing any part suitably. Therefore he was in higher favour with Dionysius than the rest, always making the best of whatever situation fell to his lot. For he enjoyed the pleasure of present things, but did not hunt with toil after the enjoyment of things not present; whence Diogenes also used to call him the royal dog. And Timon bit at him as being a voluptuary, speaking somewhat as follows: "Such as the luxurious nature of Aristippus, groping after falsehoods." They say that he once ordered a partridge to be bought for fifty drachmas; and when someone reproached him, he said, "Would you not have bought this for an obol?" When the man nodded in agreement, he said, "Fifty drachmas mean just that much to me."

​Once, when Dionysius bid him choose one of three courtesans, he led off all three, saying, "It was not even of advantage to Paris to choose one over the others." Yet, having led them as far as the vestibule, they say, he let them go. So thorough was he both in choosing and in showing contempt. Wherefore once Strato, or according to others Plato, said to him, "To you alone is it given to wear both a mantle of fine wool and a rag." And when Dionysius spat upon him, he endured it. When someone found fault with him, he said, "Come now, fishermen endure being sprayed by the sea in order to catch a gudgeon; and should I not endure being sprinkled with wine and spit to catch a whale?"

​Once, as Aristippus was passing by, Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, mocked him and said, "If you had learned to feed on these, you would not be serving in the courts of tyrants." Whereupon Aristippus said, "And if you knew how to associate with men, you would not be washing vegetables." Being asked what benefit he had derived from philosophy, he said, "To be able to associate with everyone with confidence." Being reproached on one occasion for living lavishly, he said, "If this were bad, it would not happen at the festivals of the gods." Being asked on one occasion what advantage philosophers have over others, he said, "If all the laws were abolished, we should go on living in the same manner."

​Being asked by Dionysius why philosophers go to the doors of the rich, whereas the rich no longer go to the doors of philosophers, he said, "Because the former know what they lack, while the latter do not." Being reproached once by Plato for living luxuriously, he said, "Does Dionysius seem to you to be a good man?" When Plato agreed, he said, "And yet he lives more luxuriously than I do; so nothing prevents one from living both luxuriously and virtuously." Being asked in what respect the educated differ from the uneducated, he said, "In the same way that broken horses differ from unbroken ones." Once, as he was entering the house of a courtesan, when one of the youths with him blushed, he said, "It is not entering that is shameful, but not being able to leave."

​When someone proposed a riddle to him and said, "Solve it," he said, "Why, fool, do you wish to untie that which causes us trouble even when tied?" He said it was better to be a beggar than uneducated; for the former lack money, but the latter humanity. Once, being reviled, he walked away; and when his pursuer said, "Why do you flee?" he replied, "Because you have the power to speak ill, but I have the power not to listen." When someone observed that he always saw the philosophers at the doors of the rich, he said, "Indeed, physicians too are at the doors of the sick; yet no one on that account would choose to be sick rather than to practice medicine."