Greek Texts & Translations

A boy having shown him a dagger that he had received from an admirer, Diogenes remarked, "A pretty blade with an ugly handle." When some people commended a person who had given him a gratuity, he broke in with "You have no praise for me who was worthy to receive it." When some one asked that he might have back his cloak, "If it was a gift," replied Diogenes, "I possess it ; while, if it was a loan, I am using it." A supposititious son having told him that he had gold in the pocket of his dress, "True," said he, "and therefore you sleep with it under your pillow." 6.2.63 On being asked what he had gained from philosophy, he replied, "This at least, if nothing else - to be prepared for every fortune." Asked where he came from, he said, "I am a citizen of the world." ^note Certain parents were sacrificing to the gods, that a son might be born to them. "But," said he, "do you not sacrifice to ensure what manner of man he shall turn out to be ?" When asked for a subscription towards a club, he said to the president :

Despoil the rest ; off Hector keep thy hands. ^note

The mistresses of kings he designated queens ; for, said he, they make the kings do their bidding. When the Athenians gave Alexander the title of Dionysus, he said, "Me too you might make Sarapis." ^note Some one having reproached him for going into dirty places, his reply was that the sun too visits cesspools without being defiled.

When he was dining in a temple, and in the course of the meal loaves not free from dirt were put on the table, he took them up and threw them away, declaring that nothing unclean ought to enter a temple. To the man who said to him, "You don't know anything, although you are a philosopher," he replied, "Even if I am but a pretender to wisdom, that in itself is philosophy." When some one brought a child to him and declared him to be highly gifted and of excellent character, "What need then," said he, "has he of me ?" Those who say admirable things, but fail to do them, he compared to a harp ; for the harp, like them, he said, has neither hearing nor perception. He was going into a theatre, meeting face to face those who were coming out, and being asked why, "This," he said, "is what I practise doing all my life."

Seeing a young man behaving effeminately, "Are you not ashamed," he said, "that your own intention about yourself should be worse than nature's : for nature made you a man, but you are forcing yourself to play the woman." Observing a fool tuning a psaltery, "Are you not ashamed," said he, "to give this wood concordant sounds, while you fail to harmonize your soul with life ?" To one who protested that he was ill adapted for the study of philosophy, he said, "Why then do you live, if you do not care to live well ?" To one who despised his father, "Are you not ashamed," he said, "to despise him to whom you owe it that you can so pride yourself ?" Noticing a handsome youth chattering in unseemly fashion, "Are you not ashamed," he said, "to draw a dagger of lead from an ivory scabbard ?"

Being reproached with drinking in a tavern, "Well," said he, "I also get my hair cut in a barber's shop." Being reproached with accepting a cloak from Antipater, he replied :

The gods' choice gifts are nowise to be spurned. ^note

When some one first shook a beam at him and then shouted "Look out," Diogenes struck the man with his staff and added "Look out." To a man who was urgently pressing his suit to a courtesan he said, "Why, hapless man, are you at such pains to gain your suit, when it would be better for you to lose it ?" To one with perfumed hair he said, "Beware lest the sweet scent on your head cause an ill odour in your life." He said that bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters.

The question being asked why footmen are so called, he replied, "Because they have the feet of men, but souls such as you, my questioner, have." He asked a spendthrift for a mina. The man inquired why it was that he asked others for an obol but him for a mina. "Because," said Diogenes, "I expect to receive from others again, but whether I shall ever get anything from you again lies on the knees of the gods." Being reproached with begging when Plato did not beg, "Oh yes," says he, "he does, but when he does so -

He holds his head down close, that none may hear." ^note

Seeing a bad archer, he sat down beside the target with the words "in order not to get hit." Lovers, he declared, derive their pleasures from their misfortune.

Being asked whether death was an evil thing, he replied, "How can it be evil, when in its presence we are not aware of it ?" When Alexander stood opposite him and asked, "Are you not afraid of me ?" "Why, what are you ?" said he, "a good thing or a bad ?" Upon Alexander replying "A good thing," "Who then," said Diogenes, "is afraid of the good ?" Education, according to him, is a controlling grace to the young, consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, and ornament to the rich. When Didymon, who was a rake, was once treating a girl's eye, "Beware," says Diogenes, "lest the oculist instead of curing the eye should ruin the pupil." On somebody declaring that his own friends were plotting against him, Diogenes exclaimed, "What is to be done then, if you have to treat friends and enemies alike ?"