Diogenes of Sinope > Quotes

“It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“Alexander the Great found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained, "I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.”
― Diogenes

“Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“I am a citizen of the world.”
― Diogenes of Sinope, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

“A philosopher named Aristippus, who had quite willingly sucked up to Dionysus and won himself a spot at his court, saw Diogenes cooking lentils for a meal. "If you would only learn to compliment Dionysus, you wouldn't have to live on lentils."

Diogenes replied, "But if you would only learn to live on lentils, you wouldn't have to flatter Dionysus.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.”
― Diogenes

“It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.”
― Diogenes

“Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“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.”
― Diogenes

“I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.”
― Diogenes

“Blushing is the color of virtue.”
― Diogenes

“The art of being a slave is to rule one's master.”
― Diogenes

“No man is hurt but by himself”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.”
― Diogenes

“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.”
― Diogenes

“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.”
― Diogenes

“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?”
― Diogenes

“The only way to gall and fret effectively is for yourself to be a good and honest man.”
― Diogenes

“I am Diogenes the Dog. I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy and bite scoundrels.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“Behold! I've brought you a man.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“The insult dishonors the one who infers it, not the one who receives it.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“If I gained one thing from philosophy is that at the very least, I am well prepared to confront any change in fortune.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“And at last, becoming a complete misanthrope, he used to live, spending his time in walking about the mountains; feeding on grasses and plants, and in consequence of these habits, he was attacked by the dropsy, and so then he returned to the city, and asked the physicians, in a riddle, whether they were able to produce a drought after wet weather. And as they did not understand him, he shut himself up in a stable for oxen, and covered himself with cow-dung, hoping to cause the wet to evaporate from him, by the warmth that this produced. And as he did himself no go good in this way, he died, having lived seventy years;”
― Diogenes, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

“No man is hurt but by himself.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“Cuanto más conozco a la gente, más quiero a mi perro.”
― Diogenes of Sinope

“You are a simpleton, Hegesias; you do not choose painted figs, but real ones; and yet you pass over the true training and would apply yourself to written rules”
― Diogenes of Sinope