Diogenes Quotes - Page 2

A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.

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.

The art of being a slave is to rule one's master.

As houses well stored with provisions are likely to be full of mice, so the bodies of those that eat much are full of diseases.

If I lack awareness, then why should I care what happens to me when I am dead?

Education gives sobriety to the young, comfort to the old, riches to the poor and is an ornament to the rich.

To become self-educated you should condemn yourself for all those things that you would criticize others.

Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.

Even if I am but a pretender to wisdom, that in itself is philosophy.

When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.

Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he - That when they speak truth they are not believed.

Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust. Envy of others comes from comparing what they have with what the envious person has, rather than the envious person realising they have more than what they could have and certainly more than some others and being grateful. It is really just an inability to get a correct perspective on their lives.

I am looking for an honest man.

Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance the shimmy, and you've got an audience.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

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

I am Diogenes the Dog. I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy and bite scoundrels.

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

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?

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!"

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."

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