Philosophers From Greece

"Diogenes the Cynic, it is related, was mighty of all people in regard to everything from self-control to endurance. He indulged in sexual lusts, not associating it with pleasure, an attractive good thing to some, but because of the harm that the retention of semen would cause if he avoided the habit of releasing it. When a prostitute who promised to visit him was delayed for some time, he rubbed his genitals with his hand, ejecting semen. After the whore arrived, he sent her away, saying: "my hand celebrated the wedding-hymn first." But it is clearly correct that, likewise, the disciplined man does not on account of pleasure indulge in lusts, but in order to relieve the hindrance acting as if this was not associated with pleasure."

"No labor, according to Diogenes, is good but that which aims at producing courage and strength of soul rather than of body."

"Diogenes compared them to fig-trees growing over precipices; for their fruit was devoured by daws and crows, not by men."

"When [Diogenes of Sinope] was sold as a slave, he endured it most nobly. For on a voyage to Aegina he was captured by pirates under the command of Scirpalus, conveyed to Crete and exposed for sale. When the auctioneer asked in what he was proficient, he replied, "In ruling men." Thereupon he pointed to a certain Corinthian with a fine purple border to his robe, the man named Xeniades above-mentioned, and said, “Sell me to this man; he needs a master.”"

"Diogenes, in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of Aristippus. The cynic pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the civilisation of the time. He was the nihilist of Hellenism. He created nothing, he made nothing. His role was to undo — or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role?"

"When [Diogenes] observed how other men were harassed throughout their whole lives, ever plotting against one another, ever encompassed by a thousand ills and never able to enjoy a moment’s rest, nay, not even during the great festivals nor when they proclaimed a truce; and when he beheld that they did or suffered all this simply in order to keep themselves alive, and that their greatest fear was lest their so-called necessities should fail them, and how, furthermore, they planned and strove to leave great riches to their children, he marvelled that he too did not do the like, but was the only independent man in the world."

"All articles of great expense, of vexatious and operose provision, [Diogenes] disallowed, and demonstrated their pernicious effects upon the user; yet forbade none of those bodily conveniences, which may be procured without difficulty and molestation, whether to alleviate cold or hunger or other craving appetites, but manifested by his own practice a preference to healthy situations before sickly, and to such as were more tolerable than others through all the vicissitudes of seasons. Nor was he less attentive to a plentiful supply of wholesome food, and a moderate portion of apparel: but kept himself aloof from public business, from lawsuits, from animosities, from wars and political conspiracies. The life of the Gods was the principal model of his practice: for Homer characterizes them as living at their ease with reference to the laborious and troublesome condition of mankind."

"When some people urged that it is impossible for man to live like the animals owing to the tenderness of his flesh and because he is naked and unprotected, [Diogenes] would say in reply that men are so very tender because of their mode of life. ... Man’s ingenuity and his discovering and contriving so many helps to life had not been altogether advantageous to later generations, since men do not employ their cleverness to promote courage or justice, but to procure pleasure."

"If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes."

"Even bronze is aged by time, but not all the ages, Diogenes, shall destroy thy fame, since you alone did show to mortals the rule of self-sufficiency and the easiest path of life."

"[Diogenes] was surprised by the fact that had he claimed to be a physician for the teeth, everybody would flock to him who needed to have a tooth pulled; yes, and by heavens, had he professed to treat the eyes, all who were suffering from sore eyes would present themselves, and similarly, if he had claimed to know of a medicine for diseases of the spleen or for gout or for running of the nose; but when he declared that all who should follow his treatment would be relieved of folly, wickedness, and intemperance, not a man would listen to him or seek to be cured by him, ... as though it were worse for a man to suffer from an enlarged spleen or a decayed tooth than from a soul that is foolish, ignorant, cowardly, rash, pleasure-loving, illiberal, irascible, unkind, and wicked, in fact utterly corrupt."

"As for Diogenes, Basil never ceased admiring him, the philosopher who was so set upon being content with nothing but the gifts of nature that he even threw away his drinking-cup, after he had learned from a boy how to bend over and drink from the hollow of his hands."

"A Socrates gone mad."

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

"Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself."

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

"οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχθροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὼ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω."

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

"Diogenes the cynic, seeing one of the so-called freedmen pluming himself, while many heartily congratulated him, marveled at the absence of reason and discernment. “A man might as well,” he said, “proclaim that one of his servants became a grammarian, a geometrician, or musician, when he has no idea whatever of the art.” For as the proclamation cannot make them men of knowledge, so neither can it make them free."

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

"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.""

"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.""

"It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."

"Thieves and fighters do not come from eaters of barley-bread; but informers and tyrants come from meat-eaters."

"Yesterday the wisest man holding a lit lantern in daylight was searching around town saying I am tired of all these beasts and brutes. I seek a true humanWe have all looked for one but no one could be found they saidYes he replied but my search is for the one who cannot be found."

"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 backward along the path of the promenade?""

"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.""

"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.""

"To one who asked what was the proper time for lunch, he said, "If a rich man, when you will; if a poor man, when you can.""

"He was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, "A spy upon your insatiable greed.""

"Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, "Behold Plato's man!""

"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.""

"To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, "Come, see that you obey orders.""

"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.""

"When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, "Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves.""

"If you are to be kept right, you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies. The one will warn you, the other will expose you."

"On reaching Athens he fell in with Antisthenes. Being repulsed by him, because he never welcomed pupils, by sheer persistence Diogenes wore him out. 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.""

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

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

"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.'"

"When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied "Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine.""

"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.'"

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

"Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases."

"In committing himself to a form of materialism, Thales rejects a picture of the universe found in the Homeric poems, one which posits, in addition to the natural world, a supernatural quadrant populated by beings who are not subject to such laws as may govern the interactions of all natural bodies. If all things are composed of matter, then it ought to be possible to explain all there is to explain about the universe in terms of material bodies and their law-governed interactions. This simple thought already stands in sharp contrast to a world supposed to be populated by supernatural immaterial beings whose actions may be capricious or deliberate, rational or irrational, welcome or unwelcome, but which as a matter of basic principle cannot be explicated in terms of the forms of regularity found in the natural world. In Thales’ naturalistic universe, it ought to be possible to uncover patterns and laws and to use such laws as the basis for stable predictions about the direction the universe is to take; to uncover causes and to use that knowledge to find cures for illnesses or to develop strategies for optimizing our well-being; and, less practically, to find broad-based explanations to fundamental questions which crop up in every organized society. Such questions persist: Where did the universe come from? What, ultimately, is its basic stuff?"

"According to tradition, Thales is the first to reveal the study of nature to the Greeks; although he had many predecessors, in Theopharastus' view, he so surpassed them as to eclipse everyone before him."

"[Thales] first went to Egypt and hence introduced this study [geometry] into Greece. He discovered many propositions himself, and instructed his successors in the principles underlying many others, his method of attack being in some cases more general [i.e. more theoretical or scientific], in others more empirical [...more in the nature of simple inspection or observation]."