Diogenes Laërtius Quotes

3rd-century Roman biographer of Greek philosophers

Diogenes Laërtius (fl. c. 3rd century AD), was a biographer of ancient Greek philosophers. His Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, in ten books, is still extant and is an important source of information on the development of Greek philosophy. The period when he lived is not exactly known, but it is supposed to have been during the reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Native Name: Διογένης ὁ Λαέρτιος

Alternative Names: Diogenes Laertius

From Wikidata (CC0)

It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.

Xenophanes was the first person who asserted... that the soul is a spirit.

In the time of Pythagoras that proverbial phrase Ipse dixit was introduced into ordinary life.

Among what he called his precepts were such as these: Do not stir the fire with a sword. Do not sit down on a bushel. Do not devour thy heart.

He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin.

Pythagoras used to say that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into all sorts of plants or animals.

One of the sophisms of Chrysippus was, "If you have not lost a thing, you have it."

Apollodorus says, "If any one were to take away from the books of Chrysippus all the passages which he quotes from other authors, his paper would be left empty."

But Chrysippus, Posidonius, Zeno, and Boëthus say, that all things are produced by fate. And fate is a connected cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated.

They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the universe and of all that is in the universe; however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator of the universe, and as it were the Father of all things in common, and that a portion of him pervades everything.

The Stoics also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind and Fate and Jupiter, and by many other names besides.

One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. Moreover, that in that does happiness consist.

They say that the first inclination which an animal has is to protect itself.

When Zeno was asked what a friend was, he replied, "Another I."

Diogenes said once to a person who was showing him a dial, "It is a very useful thing to save a man from being too late for supper."

Diogenes Laërtius Quotes

Works in ChatGPT, Claude, or Any AI

Share Your Favorite Quotes

Try QuoteGPT