Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, 'Behold Plato's man!' Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded.37, as reported in Diogenes the Cynic: Sayings and Anecdotes as translated by Robin Hard ( Oxford: 2012), p. He used to reason as follows: 'Everything belongs to the gods the wise are friends of the gods friends hold all things in common ergo, everything belongs to the wise.'.One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, 'A child has beaten me in plainness of living.'.To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, 'Come, see that you obey orders.'.When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, 'Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves.'.

Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, ''Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta.'.

Once when he stretched out his staff against him, the pupil offered his head with the words, “Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say.' Being repulsed by him, because he never welcomed pupils, by sheer persistence Diogenes wore him out.

On reaching Athens he fell in with Antisthenes.

It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours I wish it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly. Quoted by Diogenes Laërtius Quotations are taken from Book 6 of Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius as translated by R. The one will warn you, the other will expose you.

If you are to be kept right, you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies.

Plutarch, On Exile, 12 ( Moralia, 604D).Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases.When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied 'Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine.'.No writings of his survive, but his sayings are recorded by Diogenes Laërtius and others. 412 BC – 323 BC) was the most famous of the Cynic philosophers of ancient Greece.

He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, 'I am looking for a human.'ĭiogenes of Sinope (or Diogenes the Cynic c. and said, “Sell me to this man he needs a master.” Once he saw the officials of a temple leading away someone who had stolen a bowl belonging to the treasurers, and said, 'The great thieves are leading away the little thief.' He was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, 'A spy upon your insatiable greed.' When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied 'Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine.' Virtue cannot dwell with wealth either in a city or in a house. When the slave auctioneer asked in what he was proficient, he replied, 'In ruling men.' He pointed to a certain Corinthian with a fine purple border to his robe.

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