Greek Texts & Translations

One day seeing a runaway slave sitting on the brink of a well, he said, "Take care, my lad, you don't fall in." Seeing a boy taking clothes at the baths, he asked, "Is it for a little unguent ( ἀλειμμάτιον) or is it for a new cloak (ἄλλʼ ἱμάτιον)?" Seeing some women hanged from an olive-tree, he said, "Would that every tree bore similar fruit." On seeing a footpad he accosted him thus:

What mak'st thou here, my gallant ?

Com'st thou perchance for plunder of the dead? ^note

Being asked whether he had any maid or boy to wait on him, he said "No." "If you should die, then, who will carry you out to burial ?" "Whoever wants the house," he replied.

Noticing a good-looking youth lying in an exposed position, he nudged him and cried, "Up, man, up, lest some foe thrust a dart into thy back!" To one who was feasting lavishly he said:

Short-liv'd thou'lt be, my son, by what thou - buy'st. ^note

As Plato was conversing about Ideas and using the nouns "tablehood" and "cuphood," he said, "Table and cup I see; but your tablehood and cuphood, Plato, I can nowise see." "That's readily accounted for," said Plato, "for you have the eyes to see the visible table and cup ; but not the understanding by which ideal tablehood and cuphood are discerned."

On being asked by somebody, "What sort of a man do you consider Diogenes to be?" "A Socrates gone mad," said he. ^note Being asked what was the right time to marry, Diogenes replied, "For a young man not yet: for an old man never at all." Being asked what he would take to be soundly cuffed, he replied, "A helmet." Seeing a youth dressing with elaborate care, he said, "If it's for men, you're a fool; if for women, a knave." One day he detected a youth blushing. "Courage," quoth he, "that is the hue of virtue." One day after listening to a couple of lawyers disputing, he condemned them both, saying that the one had no doubt stolen, but the other had not lost anything. To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, "That for which other people pay." When he was told that many people laughed at him, he made answer, "But I am not laughed down."

When some one declared that life is an evil, he corrected him: "Not life itself, but living ill." When he was advised to go in pursuit of his runaway slave, he replied, "It would be absurd, if Manes can live without Diogenes, but Diogenes cannot get on without Manes." When breakfasting on olives amongst which a cake had been inserted, he flung it away and addressed it thus:

Stranger, betake thee from the princes' path. ^note

And on another occasion thus :

He lashed an olive. ^note

Being asked what kind of hound he was, he replied, "When hungry, a Maltese; when full, a Molossian - two breeds which most people praise, though for fear of fatigue they do not venture out hunting with them. So neither can you live with me, because you are afraid of the discomforts."

Being asked if the wise eat cakes, "Yes," he said, "cakes of all kinds, just like other men." Being asked why people give to beggars but not to philosophers, he said, "Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy." He was begging of a miserly man who was slow to respond; so he said, "My friend, it's for food that I'm asking, not for funeral expenses." Being reproached one day for having falsified the currency, he said, "That was the time when I was such as you are now; but such as I am now, you will never be." To another who reproached him for the same offence he made a more scurrilous repartee.

On coming to Myndus and finding the gates large, though the city itself was very small, he cried, "Men of Myndus, bar your gates, lest the city should run away." Seeing a man who had been caught stealing purple, he said:

Fast gripped by purple death and forceful fate. ^note

When Craterus wanted him to come and visit him, "No," he replied, "I would rather live on a few grains of salt at Athens than enjoy sumptuous fare at Craterus's table." He went up to Anaximenes the rhetorician, who was fat, and said, "Let us beggars have something of your paunch ; it will be a relief to you, and we shall get advantage." And when the same man was discoursing, Diogenes distracted his audience by producing some salt fish. This annoyed the lecturer, and Diogenes said, "An obol's worth of salt fish has broken up Anaximenes' lecture-class."

Being reproached for eating in the market-place, "Well, it was in the market-place," he said, "that I felt hungry." Some authors affirm that the following also belongs to him : that Plato saw him washing lettuces, came up to him and quietly said to him, "Had you paid court to Dionysius, you wouldn't now be washing lettuces," and that he with equal calmness made answer, "If you had washed lettuces, you wouldn't have paid court to Dionysius." When some one said, "Most people laugh at you," his reply was, "And so very likely do the asses at them; but as they don't care for the asses, so neither do I care for them." One day observing a youth studying philosophy, he said, "Well done, Philosophy, that thou divertest admirers of bodily charms to the real beauty of the soul."