Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Being asked by someone, "What sort of man does Diogenes seem to you?" he replied, "A Socrates gone mad." Being asked at what time one ought to marry, he said, "For young men, not yet; for older men, never at all." Being asked what he would like to receive for a blow with the fist, he said, "A helmet." Seeing a youth dressing himself up, he said, "If it is for men, you are unfortunate; if for women, you are unjust." Once, seeing a youth blushing, he said, "Courage; such is the complexion of virtue." Once, having heard two litigants, he condemned them both, saying that the one had stolen, and the other had lost nothing. Being asked what wine he drank with pleasure, he said, "Other people's." To the one who said, "Many people laugh at you," he replied, "Yet I am not laughed down."

​To the one who said that to live is an evil, he said, "Not to live, but to live evilly." To those who advised him to search for his runaway slave, he said, "It would be ridiculous if Manes can live without Diogenes, but Diogenes will not be able to live without Manes." While breakfasting on olives, when a flat-cake was brought in, he threw it away, saying, "Stranger, make way for tyrants and withdraw!" And on another occasion, "He lashed (the olive) to drive it on." Being asked what kind of dog he was, he said, "When hungry, a Maltese lapdog; but when full, a Molossian hound—one of those which the multitude praise, yet do not dare to go out hunting with them because of the fatigue. In the same way, you cannot live with me because of the fear of hardships."

​Being asked whether the wise eat flat-cake, he said, "Everything, just as other men do." Being asked why people give alms to beggars, but not to philosophers, he said, "Because they expect they may become lame and blind, but that they will never practice philosophy." He was begging from a miser; and when the man hesitated, he said, "Man, I am begging you for sustenance, not for burial." Once, being reproached for debasing the currency, he said, "There was once a time when I was such as you are now; but such as I am now, you will never be." And to another who reproached him on the same account, he said, "Indeed, I also used to wet my bed once, but now I do not."

​Having come to Myndus and observed that the gates were large while the city was small, he said, "Men of Myndus, shut your gates, lest your city should go out!" Once, having seen a purple-thief caught in the act, he said, "Purple death and strong fate seized him." When Craterus requested him to come to him, he said, "Nay, I prefer to lick salt at Athens rather than enjoy Craterus' lavish table." Approaching Anaximenes the orator, who was fat, he said, "Give us beggars too some of your belly; for you will be lightened yourself, and you will help us." Once, when this same man was lecturing, Diogenes held out a salt fish and diverted the listeners; and when the orator grew indignant, he said, "A salt fish of an obol has broken up the lecture of Anaximenes."

​Once, being reproached for having eaten in the market-place, he said, "For in the market-place I also grew hungry." Some say that the following also belongs to him: that Plato, seeing him washing vegetables, came up and said to him quietly, "If you paid court to Dionysius, you would not be washing vegetables"; and that Diogenes replied likewise quietly, "And if you washed vegetables, you would not be paying court to Dionysius." To the one who said, "Most people laugh at you," he said, "And perhaps the donkeys laugh at them; but neither do they pay regard to the donkeys, nor do I to them." Once, observing a youth studying philosophy, he said, "Well done, in that you are turning the lovers of the body toward the beauty of the soul!"

​When someone was admiring the votive offerings in Samothrace, he said, "They would have been far more numerous if those who were not saved had also dedicated offerings"—though some attribute this to Diagoras of Melos. To a handsome youth going off to a banquet, he said, "You will return worse (as Chiron)"; and when the youth returned and said on the next day, "I both went off and did not become worse," Diogenes said, "Not Chiron, but Eurytion." He was begging of a grumpy man; and when the man said, "If you persuade me," Diogenes said, "If I could have persuaded you, I would have persuaded you to hang yourself." He was returning from Lacedaemon to Athens; to the one who inquired, "Whither and whence?" he said, "From the men's quarters to the women's quarters."