Top 15 Diogenes Laërtius Quotes

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him.

Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust.

One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence.

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more.

Fortune is unstable, while our will is free.

He alludes to the appearance of a face in the orb of the moon.

Epicurus laid down the doctrine that pleasure was the chief good.

The chief good is the suspension of the judgment, which tranquillity of mind follows like its shadow.

If appearances are deceitful, then they do not deserve any confidence when they assert what appears to them to be true.

The mountains, too, at a distance appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand, they are rough.

Euripides says,—
Who knows but that this life is really death,
And whether death is not what men call life?

Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down."

Xenophanes speaks thus:—
And no man knows distinctly anything,
And no man ever will.

Nothing can be produced out of nothing.

Protagoras asserted that there were two sides to every question, exactly opposite to each other.