Diogenes of Sinope

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I am a citizen of the world.

Diogenes of Sinope or Diogenes the Cynic (c. 412 BC – 323 BC) was the most famous of the Cynic philosophers of ancient Greece. No writings of his survive, but his sayings are recorded by Diogenes Laërtius and others.

Contents

[edit] Quotes

  • I do not know whether there are gods, but there ought to be.
    • As quoted in The Home Book of Quotations, Classical and Modern (1937) by Burton Egbert Stevenson

[edit] Quoted by Plutarch

  • Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases.
    • Plutarch, On Exile, 12 (Moralia, 604D)
  • 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.

[edit] Quoted by Diogenes Laërtius

Stand a little out of my sunshine.
Quotations are taken from Book 6 of Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius as translated by R. D. Hicks (1925) vol. 2.
  • Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, "'Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta."
  • When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, "Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves."
  • 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."
  • 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, "Here is Plato's man."
  • 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."
I am looking for an honest man.
  • He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, "I am looking for a human."
    • Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 41. This line is frequently mistranslated as "I am looking for an honest man."
  • 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."
  • Behaving indecently in public, he said "I wish it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly."
    • Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 46, 69
    • Variant: If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly as it is to masturbate.
      • As quoted in Encarta Book of Quotations (2000) edited by Bill Swainson, p. 274
  • 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."
It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours
  • 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."
  • 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."

[edit] Quoted by Stobaeus

Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them.

Quoted by Stobaeus, compiler of a 5th century philosophical anthology.

  • It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.
  • 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?"
  • Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them.
  • 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.
Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself
  • Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself.

[edit] Quotes about Diogenes

  • 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.

[edit] By Galen

  • "Diogenes compared them [the ignorant rich] to fig-trees growing over precipices; for their fruit was devoured by daws and crows, not by men.[n 1]" ---[[Galen, Exhortation to Study the Arts, 7.[1]]]


  • "Diogenes received an invitation to dine with one whose house was splendidly furnished, in the highest order and taste, and nothing therein wanting. Diogenes, hawking, and as if about to spit, looked in all directions, and finding nothing adapted thereto, spat right in the face of the master. He, indignant, asked why he did so? "Because," Diogenes, "I saw nothing so dirty and filthy in all your house. For the walls were covered with pictures, the floors of the most precious tessellated character[n 2] — and ranged with the various images of gods, and other ornamental figures."[n 3]" ---[[Galen, Exhortation to Study the Arts, 8.[2]]]


  • "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.[n 4]" ---[[Galen, On the Affected Parts, 6.[3]]]


[edit] References

  1. ↑ Wakefield 1796, p. 217
  2. ↑ Coxe 1846, p. 479
  3. ↑ Alard 1813, p. 104

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ Cf. Stobaeus, iv. 31b. 48
  2. ↑ Literary evidence that mosaics existed in the 4th-century BC. This is confirmed by archeological evidence for pebble mosaics in Corinth around this time.
  3. ↑ Cf. Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 32
  4. ↑ Translated from the Latin text in the 1813 Dictionaire des sciences médicales: "Diogenem cynicum narrant, virum alioqui omnium mortalium quod ad continentiam pertinet constantissimum, libidini tamen indulsisse, non a copulata illa voluptate veluli bono aliquo illectum, sed ut noxam quae a retento semine provenire solet, evitaret. Cum meretrix adire pollicita, cum diutius cessaret, ipse manu pudendis admota, semen projecit, ad venientem deinde mulierculam remisit inquiens: manus hymenaeum celebrando te praevenit. At plane constat," ajoute Galien, "modestos viros, non ob voluptatem sed ut ab impedimento praeserverentur, libidini indulgere perinde ac si nulla esset ei voluptas conjugata." (Galenus, de locorum affectorum notitia.)

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