Quotes by Diogenes

“Perdiccas threatened to put him to death unless he came to him, That's nothing wonderful, Diogenes said, for a beetle or a tarantula would do the same.”

“Once he saw the officials of a temple leading away some one who had stolen a bowl belonging to the treasurers, and said, The great thieves are leading away the little thief.”

“When scolded for masturbating in public, he said I wish it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly.”

“When some one reminded him that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, he said, And I sentenced them to stay at home.”

“He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, To get practice in being refused.”

“To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, That for which other people pay.”

“When asked why people give to beggars but not to philosophers, he replied, 'Because they expect they may become lame and blind, but never that they will become philosophers.'”

“He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of dog. It is you who are dogs, cried he, when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast.”

“Asked where he came from, he said, I am a citizen of the world.”

“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.”

“When the slave auctioneer asked in what he was proficient, he replied, In ruling people.”

“When people laughed at him because he walked backward beneath the portico, he said to them: Aren't you ashamed, you who walk backward along the whole path of existence, and blame me for walking bac...”

“Boasting, like gilded armour, is very different inside from outside.”

“The noblest people are those despising wealth, learning, pleasure and life; esteeming above them poverty, ignorance, hardship and death.”

“Virtue cannot dwell with wealth either in a city or in a house.”

“Self-taught poverty is a help toward philosophy, for the things which philosophy attempts to teach by reasoning, poverty forces us to practice.”