Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Once, seeing a child drinking with his hands, he threw the cup from his wallet, saying, "A child has surpassed me in simplicity." He also discarded his bowl, similarly having seen a child, when his vessel broke, catching his lentils in the hollow of a piece of bread. He would also reason syllogistically thus: all things belong to the gods; the wise are friends to the gods; and the property of friends is held in common; therefore, all things belong to the wise. Once, seeing a woman prostrating herself before the gods in rather an unseemly posture, wishing to rid her of superstition, as Zoïlus of Perga says, he went up to her and said, "Are you not wary, woman, lest, with a god standing behind you—for all things are full of him—you act unseemly?"

​He dedicated to Asclepius a striker, who would run up and thrash those falling flat on their faces. He was accustomed to say that the tragic curses had befallen him: namely, that he was "Citiless, homeless, bereft of fatherland, a beggar, a wanderer, living a day-to-day life." He used to say that he opposed courage to fortune, nature to convention, and reason to passion. As he was sunning himself in the Craneum, Alexander stood over him and said, "Ask of me whatever you wish." And he said, "Stand out of my light." When someone was reading a lengthy book and showed a blank space near the end of the scroll, he said, "Take heart, men: I see land!" To the man who argued syllogistically that he had horns, he touched his forehead and said, "Well, I do not see them."

​Similarly, to the man asserting that motion does not exist, he got up and walked about. To the man speaking about celestial phenomena, he said, "On what day did you arrive from heaven?" When a wicked eunuch had inscribed upon his house, "Let no evil enter," Diogenes said, "Where then is the master of the house to enter?" Having anointed his feet with perfume, he said that from the head the perfume dissipated into the air, but from the feet it rose to his sense of smell. When the Athenians urged him to be initiated and said that the initiated enjoy precedence in Hades, he said, "It would be ridiculous if Agesilaus and Epaminondas are to spend their time in the mire, while some worthless fellows, because they have been initiated, will dwell in the Islands of the Blest."

​To the mice creeping onto his table, he said, "Look, even Diogenes maintains parasites." When Plato called him a dog, he said, "Yes; for I have come back to those who sold me." Coming out of the bathhouse, when someone asked whether many people were bathing, he denied it; but to the one asking if there was a great crowd, he agreed. When Plato defined man as a featherless biped and was applauded for it, Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into the school, saying, "This is Plato's man." Whence the clause 'with broad flat nails' was added to the definition. To the man inquiring at what hour one should dine, he said, "If a rich man, whenever he wishes; if a poor man, whenever he can."

​In Megara, seeing the sheep covered with fleece-skins while their children went naked, he said, "It is more profitable to be a Megarian's ram than his son." To the man who struck him with a beam and then said, "Watch out!" he said, "Are you going to hit me again?" He used to call demagogues the ministers of the mob, and crowns the blisters of fame. Having lit a lamp in broad daylight, he would walk about saying, "I am looking for a human being." Once he stood being drenched under a spout; while the bystanders were pitying him, Plato, who was present, said, "If you wish to pity him, stand back," pointing out his vanity. When someone struck him with his fist, he said, "By Heracles, what a thing it was that escaped me: to walk about wearing a helmet!"