Greek Texts & Translations

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 ?"

Being asked what was the most beautiful thing in the world, he replied, "Freedom of speech." On entering a boys' school, he found there many statues of the Muses, but few pupils. "By the help of the gods," said he, "schoolmaster, you have plenty of pupils." It was his habit to do everything in public, the works of Demeter and of Aphrodite alike. He used to draw out the following arguments. "If to breakfast be not absurd, neither is it absurd in the market-place ; but to breakfast is not absurd, therefore it is not absurd to breakfast in the marketplace." Behaving indecently in public, he wished "it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly." Many other sayings are attributed to him, which it would take long to enumerate. ^note

He used to affirm that training was of two kinds, mental and bodily : the latter being that whereby, with constant exercise, perceptions are formed such as secure freedom of movement for virtuous deeds ; and the one half of this training is incomplete without the other, good health and strength being just as much included among the essential things, whether for body or soul. And he would adduce indisputable evidence to show how easily from gymnastic training we arrive at virtue. For in the manual crafts and other arts it can be seen that the craftsmen develop extraordinary manual skill through practice. Again, take the case of flute-players and of athletes : what surpassing skill they acquire by their own incessant toil ; and, if they had transferred their efforts to the training of the mind, how certainly their labours would not have been unprofitable or ineffective.

Nothing in life, however, he maintained, has any chance of succeeding without strenuous practice ; and this is capable of overcoming anything. Accordingly, instead of useless toils men should choose such as nature recommends, whereby they might have lived happily. Yet such is their madness that they choose to be miserable. For even the despising of pleasure is itself most pleasurable, when we are habituated to it ; and just as those accustomed to a life of pleasure feel disgust when they pass over to the opposite experience, so those whose training has been of the opposite kind derive more pleasure from despising pleasure than from the pleasures themselves. This was the gist of his conversation ; and it was plain that he acted accordingly, adulterating currency in very truth, allowing convention no such authority as he allowed to natural right, and asserting that the manner of life he lived was the same as that of Heracles when he preferred liberty to everything.

He maintained that all things are the property of the wise, and employed such arguments as those cited above. All things belong to the gods. The gods are friends to the wise, and friends share all property in common ; therefore all things are the property of the wise. Again as to law : that it is impossible for society to exist without law ; for without a city no benefit can be derived from that which is civilized. But the city is civilized, and there is no advantage in law without a city ; therefore law is something civilized. He would ridicule good birth and fame and all such distinctions, calling them showy ornaments of vice. The only true commonwealth was, he said, that which is as wide as the universe. He advocated community of wives, recognizing no other marriage than a union of the man who persuades with the woman who consents. And for this reason he thought sons too should be held in common.

And he saw no impropriety either in stealing anything from a temple or in eating the flesh of any animal ; nor even anything impious in touching human flesh, this, he said, being clear from the custom of some foreign nations. Moreover, according to right reason, as he put it, all elements are contained in all things and pervade everything : since not only is meat a constituent of bread, but bread of vegetables ; and all other bodies also, by means of certain invisible passages and particles, find their way in and unite with all substances in the form of vapour. This he makes plain in the Thyestes, if the tragedies are really his and not the work of his friend Philiscus of Aegina or of Pasiphon, the son of Lucian, ^note who according to Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History wrote them after the death of Diogenes. He held that we should neglect music, geometry, astronomy, and the like studies, as useless and unnecessary.