Diogenes Quotes

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

“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."”

“Nothing can be produced out of nothing.”

“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.”

“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?”

“I like best the wine drunk at the cost of others.”

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

“Blushing is the color of virtue.”

“People who talk well but do nothing are like musical intruments; the sound is all they have to offer.”

“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."”

“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!"”

“To arrive at perfection, a man should have very sincere friends or inveterate enemies; because he would be made sensible of his good or ill conduct, either by the censures of the one or the admonitions of the other.”

“The health and vigor necessary for the practice of what is good, depend equally on both mind and body.”

“No man is hurt but by himself. ...Literally by how he interprets what happens to him. If he focusses on how it could have been better, he will be hurt. If he focusses on how it could have been worse, he will be happy. The same is true for women too.”

“He was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, "A spy upon your insatiable greed."”

“If only it was as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly as it is to masturbate.”

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

“Protagoras asserted that there are two sides to every question, exactly opposite to each other.”

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

“One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings”

“The chief good is the suspension of the judgment [especially negative judgement], which tranquillity of mind follows like its shadow.”

“Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.”

“We come into the world alone and we die alone. Why, in life, should we be any less alone?”

“When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, "Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves."”

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