Diogenes Laertius > Quotes

“Time is the most valuable thing that a man can spend.”
― Diogenes

“One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings.”
― Diogenes Laërtius

“We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.”
― Diogenes Laertius

“We are more curious about the meaning of dreams than about things we see when awake.”
― Diogenes Laertius

“One day a man invited him into a richly furnished house, saying 'be careful not to spit on the floor.' Diogenes, who needed to spit, spat in his face, exclaiming that it was the only dirty place he could find where spitting was permitted.”
― Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

“Step out of my sunlight.”
― Diogenes Laertius

“Why not whip the teacher when the student misbehaves?”
― Diogenes

“Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance and shimmy, and you've got an audience!”
― Diogenes Laërtius

“Man is the most intelligent of animals -- and the most silly.”
― Diogenes

“As to the gods, I have no means of knowing either that they exist or do not exist. For many are the obstacles that impede knowledge, both the obscurity of the question and the shortness of human life.”
― Diogenes Laertius

“Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he lay dying in a foreign land, "The descent to hell is the same from every place.”
― Diogenes Laërtius

“Thales said there was no difference between life and death. "Why, then," said someone to him, "do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does make no difference.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Vol 1, Books 1-5

“Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said: To know one's self.”
― Diogenes Laërtius

“The tired ox treads with a firmer step”
― Diogenes Laertius

“A vine bears three grapes, the first of pleasure, the second of drunkenness, and the third of repentance.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, Complete Works

“Die schönste Sache in der Welt ist die Redefreiheit.”
― Diogenes

“Of what am I guilty," once exclaimed Antisthenes, "that I should be praised?”
― Diogenes Laërtius, Stoic Six Pack 5: The Cynics: An Introduction to Cynic Philosophy/The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus/Life of Antisthenes/The Symposium, Book 4/Life of Diogenes/Life of Crates

“Stand a little less between me and the sun." Diogenes and I.”
― Diogenes Laërtius

“He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend together; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, Complete Works

“They reject dialectic as superfluous; holding that in their inquiries the physicists should be content to employ the ordinary terms for things.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, Complete Works

“Yoksunluktan ileri gelen acıyı ortadan kaldıran yalın tatlar da zengin bir sofrayla aynı hazzı verir. (Epikuros)”
― Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

“Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus and Phæstias, a citizen of Stagira; and Nicomachus was descended from Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the son of Æsculapius, as Hermippus tells us in his treatise on Aristotle; and he lived with Amyntas, the king of the Macedonians, as both a physician and a friend. II. He was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato; he had a lisping voice, as is asserted by Timotheus the Athenian, in his work on Lives. He had also very thin legs, they say, and small eyes; but he used to indulge in very conspicuous dress, and rings, and used to dress his hair carefully.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Theories of Eminent Philosophers

“A man once said to him, that his friends laid plots against him; “What then,” said he, “are you to do, if you must look upon both your friends and enemies in the same light?” On one occasion he was asked, what was the most excellent thing among men; and he said, “Freedom of speech.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Theories of Eminent Philosophers

“[Pyrrho] is said to have washed a piglet himself because he was indifferent to what he did.”
― Diogenes Laërtius

“O my country, I have stood by you in word and deed.” And”
― Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

“Decía que «las palabras son imagen de las obras. Rey, el de mayores fuerzas. Las leyes, como las telarañas; pues éstas enredan lo leve y de poca fuerza, pero lo mayor las rompe y se escapa.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, Vidas, Opiniones y Sentencias de Los Filósofos Más Ilustres

“(Diogenes) Bir gün Olympia'dan dönüyordu; çok kalabalık var mıydı, diye sorana, "Kalabalık çoktu, ama insan azdı" diye yanıt verdi.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

“XXIV. But Molon, who had a great dislike to Plato, says “There is not so much to wonder at in Dionysius being at Corinth, as in Plato’s being in Sicily.” Xenophon, too, does not appear to have been very friendlily disposed towards him: and accordingly they have, as if in rivalry of one another, both written books with the same title, the Banquet, the Defence of Socrates, Moral Reminiscences. Then, too, the one wrote the Cyropædia and the other a book on Politics; and Plato in his Laws says, that the Cyropædia is a mere romance, for that Cyrus was not such a person as he is described in that book. And though they both speak so much of Socrates, neither of them ever mentions the other, except that Xenophon once speaks of Plato in the third book of his Reminiscences.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Theories of Eminent Philosophers

“Si oprimidos os veis, echad la culpa sobre vosotros mismos, no a los dioses. Dando a algunos poder, dando riquezas, compráis la servidumbre más odiosa. De ese varón os embelesa el habla, y nada reparáis en sus acciones. Hasta”
― Diogenes Laërtius, Vidas, Opiniones y Sentencias de Los Filósofos Más Ilustres

“A bald man insulted Diogenes the Cynic and Diogenes replied, 'Far be it from me to make insults! But I do want to compliment your hair for having abandoned such a worthless head.”
― Diogenes Laërtius, Diogenes of Sinope - Life and Legend: Handbook of Source Material