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

after hawking a little, he spit in his face, saying that he could not find a worse place. But some tell this story of Aristippus. Once, he called out: “Holloa, men.” And when some people gathered round him in consequence, he drove them away with his stick, saying: “I called men, and not dregs.” This anecdote I have derived from Hecaton, in the first book of his Apothegms. They also relate that Alexander said that if he had not been Alexander, he should have liked to be Diogenes. He used to call ἀνάπηροι (cripples), not those who were dumb and blind, but those who had no wallet (πήρα). On one occasion he went half shaved into an entertainment of young men, as Metrocles tells us in his Apothegms, and so was beaten by them. And afterwards he wrote the names of all those who had beaten him on a white tablet, and went about with the tablet round his neck, so as to expose them to insult, as they were generally condemned and reproached for their conduct.

He used to say that he was the hound of those who were praised; but that none of those who praised them dared to go out hunting with him. A man once said to him: “I conquered men at the Pythian games;” on which he said: “I conquer men, but you only conquer slaves.” When some people said to him: “You are an old man, and should rest for the remainder of your life.”⁠—“Why so?” replied he, “suppose I had run a long distance, ought I to stop when I was near the end, and not rather press on?” Once when he was invited to a banquet, he said that he would not come, for that the day before no one had thanked him for coming. He used to go barefoot through the snow, and to do a number of other things which have been already mentioned. Once he attempted to eat raw meat, but he could not digest it. On one occasion he found Demosthenes the orator, dining in an inn, and as he was slipping away, he said to him: “You will now be ever so much more in an inn.”57 Once, when some strangers wished to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger, and said: “This is the great demagogue of the Athenian people.” When someone had dropped a loaf, and was ashamed to pick it up again, he, wishing to give him a lesson, tied a cord round the neck of a bottle and dragged it all through the Ceramicus. He used to say that he imitated the teachers of choruses, for that they spoke too loud in order that the rest might catch the proper tone. Another of his sayings was that most men were within a finger’s breadth of being mad. If, then, anyone were to walk along, stretching out his middle finger, he will seem to be mad; but if he puts out his forefinger, he will not be thought so. Another of his sayings was that things of great value were often sold for nothing, and vice versa. Accordingly, that a statue would fetch three thousand drachmas, and a bushel of meal only two obols; and when Xeniades had bought him, he said to him: “Come, do what you are ordered to.” And when he said⁠—

“The streams of sacred rivers now
Run backwards to their source!”

“Suppose,” rejoined Diogenes, “you had been sick, and had bought a physician, could you refuse to be guided by him, and tell him⁠—

“The streams of sacred rivers now
Run backwards to their source?”

Once a man came to him and wished to study philosophy as his pupil; and he gave him a saperda58 and made him follow him. And as he from shame threw it away and departed, he soon afterwards met him and, laughing, said to him: “A saperda has dissolved your friendship for me.” But Diocles tells this story in the following manner; that when someone said to him: “Give me a commission, Diogenes,” he carried him off and gave him a halfpenny worth of cheese to carry. And as he refused to carry it: “See,” said Diogenes, “a halfpenny worth of cheese has broken off our friendship.”

On one occasion he saw a child drinking out of its hands, and so he threw away the cup which belonged to his wallet, saying: “That child has beaten me in simplicity.” He also threw away his spoon after seeing a boy, when he had broken his vessel, take up his lentils with a crust of bread. And he used to argue thus: “Everything belongs to the gods; and wise men are the friends of the gods. All things are in common among friends; therefore everything belongs to wise men.” Once he saw a woman falling down before the Gods in an unbecoming attitude; he, wishing to cure her of her superstition, as Zoilus of Perga tells us, came up to her and said: “Are you not afraid, O woman, to be in such an indecent attitude when some God may be behind you, for every place is full of him?” He consecrated a man to Aesculapius, who was to run up and beat all these who prostrated themselves with their faces to the ground; and he was in the habit of saying that the tragic curse had come upon him, for that he was⁠—

Houseless and citiless, a piteous exile
From his dear native land; a wandering beggar,
Scraping a pittance poor from day to day.

And another of his sayings was that he opposed confidence to fortune, nature to law, and reason to suffering. Once, while he was sitting in the sun in the Craneum, Alexander was standing by, and said to him: “Ask any favor you choose of me.” And he replied: “Cease to shade me from the sun.” On one occasion a man was reading some long