The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius (best free ebook reader txt) 📕

very same thing.” When a man reproached him for living with a mistress, he said: “Does it make any difference whether one takes a house in which many others have lived before one, or one where no one has ever lived?” and his reprover said: “No.”⁠—“Well does it make any difference whether one sails in a ship which ten thousand people have sailed before one, or whether one sails in one in which no one has ever embarked?”⁠—“By no means,” said the other. “Just in the same way,” said he, “it makes no difference whether one lives with a woman with whom numbers have lived, or with one with whom no one has lived.” When a person once blamed him for taking money from his pupils, after having been himself a pupil of Socrates: “To be sure I do,” he replied, “for Socrates too, when some friends sent their corn and wine, accepted a little and sent the rest back; for he had the chief men of the Athenians for his purveyors. But I have only Eutychides, whom I have bought with money.” And he used to live with Lais the courtesan, as Sotion tells us in the Second Book of his Successions. Accordingly, when someone reproached him on her account, he made answer: “I possess her, but I am not possessed by her; since the best thing is to possess pleasures without being their slave, not to be devoid of pleasures.” When someone blamed him for the expense he was at about his food, he said: “Would you not have bought those things yourself if they had cost three obols?” And when the other admitted that he would; “Then,” said he, “it is not that I am fond of pleasure, but that you are fond of money.” On one occasion, when Simus, the steward of Dionysius, was showing him a magnificent house paved with marble (but Simus was a Phrygian, and a great toper), he hawked up a quantity of saliva and spit in his face; and when Simus was indignant at this, he said: “I could not find a more suitable place to spit in.”

Charondas, or as some say, Phaedon, asked him once: “Who are the people who use perfumes?”⁠—“I do,” said he, “wretched man that I am, and the king of the Persians is still more wretched than I; but, recollect, that as no animal is the worse for having a pleasant scent, so neither is a man; but plague take those wretches who abuse our beautiful unguents.” On another occasion, he was asked how Socrates died; and he made answer: “As I should wish to die myself.” When Polyxenus, the Sophist, came to his house and beheld his women, and the costly preparation that was made for dinner, and then blamed him for all this luxury, Aristippus after a while said: “Can you stay with me to day?” and when Polyxenus consented: “Why then,” said he, “did you blame me? it seems that you blame not the luxury, but the expense of it.” When his servant was once carrying some money along the road, and was oppressed by the weight of it (as Bion relates in his Dissertations), he said to him: “Drop what is beyond your strength, and only carry what you can.” Once he was at sea, and seeing a pirate vessel at a distance, he began to count his money; and then he let it drop into the sea, as if unintentionally, and began to bewail his loss; but others say that he said besides, that it was better for the money to be lost for the sake of Aristippus, than Aristippus for the sake of his money. On one occasion, when Dionysius asked him why he had come, he said to give others a share of what he had, and to receive a share of what he had not; but some report that his answer was: “When I wanted wisdom, I went to Socrates; but now that I want money, I have come to you.” He found fault with men, because when they are at sales, they examine the articles offered very carefully, but yet they approve of men’s lives without any examination. Though some attribute this speech to Diogenes. They say that once at a banquet, Dionysius desired all the guests to dance in purple garments; but Plato refused, saying:

“I could not wear a woman’s robe, when I
Was born a man, and of a manly race.”

But Aristippus took the garment, and when he was about to dance, he said very wittily:

“She who is chaste, will not corrupted be
By Bacchanalian revels.”

He was once asking a favor of Dionysius for a friend, and when he could not prevail, he fell at his feet; and when someone reproached him for such conduct, he said: “It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who has his ears in his feet.” When he was staying in Asia, and was taken prisoner by Artaphernes the Satrap, someone said to him: “Are you still cheerful and sanguine?”⁠—“When, you silly fellow,” he replied, “can I have more reason to be cheerful than now when I am on the point of conversing with Artaphernes?” It used to be a saying of his that those who had enjoyed the encyclic course of education, but who had omitted philosophy, were like the suitors of Penelope; for that they gained over Melantho and Polydora and the other maidservants, and found it easier to do that than to marry the mistress. And Ariston said in like manner, that Ulysses when he had gone to the shades below, saw and conversed with nearly all the dead in those regions, but could not get a sight of the Queen herself.

On another occasion, Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for wellborn boys to learn, said: “Those things which they will put in practice when they become men.” And when someone reproached him for having come from Socrates to