Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Moreover, when Meidias gave him a blow with his fist and said, "Three thousand drachmas are deposited for you on the banker's table," on the following day Diogenes took boxing thongs, beat him soundly, and said, "Three thousand drachmas are deposited for you on the banker's table." When Lysias the apothecary asked whether he believed in gods, he said, "How should I not believe, seeing that I regard even you as hateful to the gods?" Some, however, say that Theodorus said this. Seeing someone performing lustrations, he remarked, "Unfortunate man, do you not know that just as you could not be freed from errors in grammar by sprinkling yourself with water, so neither could you from those in life?" He used to reprove men regarding prayer, saying that they asked for things that seemed good to them, not those that are truly good.

​To those alarmed about dreams, he would say that they paid no heed to what they did while awake, yet busied themselves with what they imagined while asleep. At Olympia, when the herald proclaimed, "Dioxippus is victorious over men," Diogenes said, "He indeed over slaves, but I over men." He was beloved even by the Athenians; at any rate, when a youth broke his tub, they gave the youth a thrashing and provided Diogenes with another. Dionysius the Stoic says that after Chaeronea he was captured and brought before Philip; and on being asked who he was, he replied, "A spy upon your insatiable greed;" whereat he was admired and released.

​Once, when Alexander sent a letter to Antipater in Athens by a certain Athlias, Diogenes, who was present, said: "A wretched man, from a wretched man, through a wretched man, to a wretched man." When Perdiccas threatened to kill him if he did not come to him, he said, "Nothing great: for even a beetle and a tarantula could do that;" but he deemed that he ought rather to threaten thus: "that even if he lived without me, he would live happily." He would frequently shout, saying that an easy life had been given by the gods to men, but that it was concealed from them as they sought honey-cakes, perfumes, and the like. Hence, to the man being shod by his servant, he said, "Not yet are you blissful, unless he also wipes your nose; and that will happen when you have your hands crippled."

​Once, seeing the temple officials leading off one of the treasurers who had stolen a phiale, he said, "The great thieves are leading off the small one." Once, seeing a youth throwing stones at a cross, he said, "Well done; for you will hit your mark (reach your end)." To the youths who stood around him and said, "Let us watch out lest he bite us," he said, "Take heart, boys: a dog does not eat beetroots." To the man strutting in a lion's skin, he said, "Stop disgracing the trappings of virtue." To the one who congratulated Callisthenes and remarked what luxuries he shared at Alexander's side, he said, "Rather, he is a wretched man, who breakfasts and dines whenever it pleases Alexander."

​When in need of money, he used to say that he demanded it back from his friends, not that he begged for it. Once, while masturbating in the market-place, he said, "Would that it were possible by rubbing one's belly likewise not to be hungry." Seeing a youth going off to dine with satraps, he tore him away, led him off to his family, and bade them watch over him. To a dressed-up youth who asked him a question, he said he would not answer him beforehand unless he tucked up his clothes and showed whether he was a woman or a man. To the youth playing cottabus in the bathhouse, he said, "The better, the worse." At a dinner party, some people threw small bones at him as if to a dog; and as he departed, he urinated on them like a dog.

​He used to call the rhetoricians and all those giving praise for glory 'thrice-men' instead of 'thrice-wretched.' An uneducated rich man he called a 'golden-fleeced sheep.' Seeing written upon the house of a spendthrift, "For sale," he said, "I knew that, drunk as you are, you would easily vomit out your owner." To the youth complaining of the crowd of those annoying him, he said, "Then stop parading about with the marks of a pathic yourself." To the dirty bathhouse, he said, "Those who bathe here, where do they wash themselves?" When a portly citharode was being blamed by everyone, he alone praised him; and being asked why, he said, "Because, being of such a size, he sings to the cithara and does not turn bandit."