Diogenes of Sinope Quotes

Thieves and fighters do not come from eaters of barley-bread; but informers and tyrants come from meat-eaters.

Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them.

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."

On reaching Athens he fell in with Antisthenes. Being repulsed by him, because he never welcomed pupils, by sheer persistence Diogenes wore him out. Once when he stretched out his staff against him, the pupil offered his head with the words, "Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say."

When asked why people give to beggars but not to philosophers, he replied, 'Because they expect they may become lame and blind, but never that they will become philosophers.'

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."

It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.

He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, "I am looking for a human."

He was going into a theatre, meeting face to face those who were coming out, and being asked why, "This," he said, "is what I practise doing all my life."

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

Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, "Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta."

He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, "To get practice in being refused."

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 used to reason as follows: 'Everything belongs to the gods; the wise are friends of the gods; friends hold all things in common; ergo, everything belongs to the wise.'

To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, "Come, see that you obey orders."