56a He lit a lamp in full daylight and walked around with it, saying, ‘I’m searching for a man.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.41; G272)
56b He once lit a lamp in daylight and walked around; and when some people asked him why he was doing that, he said that he was searching for a man.
(Maximus 70.20; G272)
57 He would call human beings only those who have a knowledge of what is truly human, just as those who have a knowledge of grammar are grammarians, or of music are musicians.
(Codex Patmos 263, no. 55; G331B)
58 When he came back from the Olympic Games, someone asked him if there had been much of a crowd. ‘A considerable crowd,’ he replied, ‘but hardly a man to be seen.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.60; G273)
59 As he was coming out of the baths, someone asked if there were many men bathing there, and he said, ‘No’; but when asked if there was much of a crowd, he replied, ‘Yes indeed.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.40; G274)
60 One day he shouted, ‘Hey, men!’, and when some people came along, he struck them with his stick, saying, ‘I called for men, not scum!’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.32; G278)
61 When asked where in Greece he had seen good men, he replied, ‘Men nowhere at all, but boys in Sparta.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.27; G280)
62 When someone asked him, as he was returning from Sparta to Athens, where he had been and where he was going, he replied, ‘From the men’s quarters to the women’s.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.59; G282)
63 When an Athenian once reproached Diogenes, saying that he was always praising the Spartans and yet did not care to go and live among them, he replied, ‘But a doctor, being a man who is responsible for bringing people to good health, does not carry out his business among those who are healthy.’
(Stobaeus 3.13.43; G281)
64 After the race in armour* at the Olympic Games, Diogenes ran forward and proclaimed himself as the Olympic victor over all mankind in human excellence.
(Demetrius, On Style 260; G449)
65 Diogenes used to say that he had seen many men competing in wrestling and in running, but no one competing to surpass in human excellence.
(Stobaeus 3.4.111; G450)
66 He said that many men compete in digging and kicking,* but no one at all in the pursuit of human excellence.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.27; G450)
67 Diogenes used to say that it is absurd that, if athletes and singers gain mastery over their stomach and pleasures for the sake of their voice or body, no one despises these things for the sake of his soul’s good order.
(Stobaeus 3.5.39; G451)
68 Diogenes said that no exercise is of any value unless it aims at the good order and fitness of the soul, as opposed to that of the body.
(Stobaeus 3.7.17; G292)
69a When the herald proclaimed at the Olympic Games, ‘Dioxippos is victor over men!’,* Diogenes said, ‘No, he’s victor over slaves, it’s I who am victor over men.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.43; G76)
69b When someone said that he had been victor over men at the Pythian Games,* Diogenes replied, ‘No, it’s I who am victor over men, and you over slaves.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.33; G76)
70a As the Athenian Olympic victor Dioxippos was being driven into Athens in the way that is customary for victorious athletes,* a crowd gathered together from all directions and gazed at him admiringly; and among others a woman of exceptional beauty arrived to have a look at him. On seeing her, Dioxippos was at once overcome by her beauty, and could never stop gazing at her and turning back to look at her, as his face kept changing colour, so that it did not escape the attention of many who were there that the man was looking at her in no casual fashion. His state of mind was recognized most clearly by Diogenes of Sinope, who remarked to those around him, ‘Just look at how that great athlete of yours has been caught in a neck-lock by a slip of a girl!’
(Aelian, Historical Miscellany 12.58; G452)
70b Diogenes was watching the Olympic victor Dioxippos as he was being driven past in a chariot, and saw how he could not keep his eyes off a beautiful woman who was watching the procession, but kept gazing at her and turning back to look at her. ‘Look at that,’ he said, ‘the athlete has been caught in a neck-lock by a slip of a girl!’
(Plutarch, On Curiosity 12, 521b; G452)
70c Seeing an Olympic victor repeatedly turning to gaze at a woman of easy virtue, Diogenes said, ‘Look at this fire-breathing ram of ours, caught in a neck-hold by the first wench he comes across!’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.61; G452)
71 He used to say that he imitated the chorus-masters, for they too set the note somewhat high* so that others may strike the right note.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.35; G266)
72 He walked into a theatre against the flow as everyone was streaming out, and when asked why he was doing so, replied, ‘Why, this is what I seek to do my whole life through.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.64; G267)
73 He walked around backwards in the public arcade, and when people laughed at him, said, ‘Aren’t you ashamed that while you’re walking in the wrong direction along life’s path, you scoff at me for walking backwards?’
(Stobaeus 3.4.83; G267)
74 Someone said that Diogenes was out of his mind.* ‘It’s not that I’m out of my mind,’ he replied. ‘It’s that I don’t have the same mind as you.’
(Stobaeus 3.3.51; G427)
75 One day, when he had been talking in a serious fashion and no one had drawn near, he began to whistle; and as people gathered round him, he reproached them for earnestly pressing forward to listen to nonsense, but holding back and reacting with disdain when it came to serious matters.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.27; G314)
76 Diogenes used constantly to say to himself; when most people sing your praises, consider yourself worthy of none, and when no one praises and all condemn, that you are worthy of much.
(Codex Vaticanus Graecus 633, fo. 119; G435)
77 He would ridicule good birth and reputation and everything of that kind, calling them gaudy embellishments of vice.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.72; G353)
78 When someone asked him, ‘Who are the noblest of men?’, he replied, ‘Those who despise riches, reputation, pleasure and concern for life, and are thus able to overmaster their opposites, poverty, ill-repute, suffering, and death.’
(Stobaeus 4.29.19; G302)
79a When someone asked him how one can best gain a reputation, he replied, ‘By holding reputation in contempt.’
(Lucian, Defence of the Portrait-Study 17; G302)
79b When someone asked him how one can gain a reputation with the greatest rapidity and ease, he replied, ‘By being able to hold reputation in contempt.’
(Nicephorus Gregoras, Byzantine History 21.5.7; G302)
80 To someone who told him, ‘Many people laugh at you’, he replied, ‘Yes, but I’m not laughed down.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.54; G430)
81 When a good person is insulted, the insult is indeed inflicted, but it has no effect on him because he views it with contempt. So when someone insulted Diogenes, and someone else said to him, ‘That man has insulted you, Diogenes’, he replied, ‘But I for my part suffer no insult or ridicule.’*
(Olympiodoros, Commentary on Plato’s ‘Gorgias’, 476a, 22.2; G270)
82 When someone said to him, ‘Most people laugh at you’, he replied, ‘And doubtless donkeys laugh at them;* but just as they pay no heed to the donkeys, I pay none to them.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.58; G431)
83 The man from Sinope would go up to women from the brothels and abuse them, so the story goes. With what in mind? To be able to bear insults with equanimity in return for insults.
(Gregory Nazianzen, Carmina 1.2, 25.494–6; G271)
84 When someone told him that he was pretending to be a philosopher without really being one, he replied, ‘Then I’m better than you at least in the fact that I do actually want to be one.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 174; G365)
85 To someone who said to him, ‘You play the philosopher without knowing anything at all’, he replied, ‘Even if I merely pretend to wisdom, that is itself the mark of one who aspires to it.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.64; G364)
86 Some schools took their name… from nicknames that were applied by way of a gibe, as was the case with the Cynics.
(Diogenes Laertius 1.17)
87 Diogenes used to say, ‘Other dogs bite their enemies, but I my friends, so as to save them.’*
(Stobaeus 3.13.44; G149)
88 When Polyxenos the dialectician* grew indignant at the fact that people were calling Diogenes a dog, he said, ‘You too should call me “Dog”; Diogenes is merely my nickname; I am indeed a dog, but one of noble breed who watches over his friends.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 194; G149)
89 When asked what sort of things he did to be called a dog, he said, ‘I fawn on the people who give me something, bark at those who don’t, and sink my teeth into scoundrels.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.60; G143)
90 When asked what kind of dog he was, he said, ‘When hungry, a Maltese, and when full, a Molossian,* dogs whom everyone praises but no one dares to go out hunting with,* because of the hardships involved; and you likewise are incapable of sharing my life, because you are afraid of suffering.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.55; G143)
91 As he was eating his meal in the market-place, the bystanders kept shouting out, ‘Dog!’ ‘It’s you who are the dogs’, he retorted, ‘who keep pressing round me as I eat.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.61; G147)
92 At a dinner some people were tossing bones to him as though he were a dog; but he rid himself of them by pissing on them as though he were a dog.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.46; G146)
93a To some boys who crowded round him, saying, ‘Watch out that he doesn’t bite us’, he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, lads, dogs don’t feed on beets.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.45; G145)
93b When a pair of cowards hid away from him, he said, ‘Don’t worry, a dog doesn’t feed on beets.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.61; G145)
94 He used to say that he was the kind of dog whom everyone praised,but that none of those who praised him dared accompany him on the hunt.*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.33; G144)
95 The people of Athens called Diogenes ‘the Dog’ because he made the ground his bed and would spend the night in the streets in front of doors; but Diogenes liked this nickname because he saw that it was appropriate to the way in which he conducted himself. For he knew, as Plato recounts about the nature of dogs,* that it is their way to love those whom they know and to fawn on them, whilst they growl at those whom they do not know, and that they distinguish enemies from friends, not because they have any knowledge of good and evil, but because they either know people or do not know them. The philosopher must be of such a nature that he does not hate someone because that person does not give him anything, but rather that he should regard as a friend anyone whom he sees to be in possession of virtue, and recognize someone as alien to him in so far as he sees badness in him. Whilst a dog recognizes someone as a friend because he is accustomed to seeing him, the philosopher is able to rely on his understanding, in preference to his eyes, to distinguish a friend from an enemy, so that he should approach the one and keep the other at a distance, not so as to satisfy his anger, or indeed to bite him, but to restore him to his proper mind through admonition and cure him, and, as though through bites, to expose and bring to light his hidden failings through admonition. If someone is a dog of such a kind, it is not a house alone that he protects, and not only the person who feeds him, but he keeps watch over human beings in general, not to ensure that they do not lose their property, but rather that they do not get robbed of their integrity and mutual harmony.
(Themistius, On Virtue 43 ff. Sachau)