137 Illusion,* like a shepherd, leads most men where it wills.
(Stobaeus 3.22.41; G289)
138 Avarice, he said, is the mother-city of all evils.*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.50; G228)
139 He said that wealth is the vomit of fortune.*
(Arsenius p. 209, 11; G220)
140 Those who heap up large stores of wealth he called archbeggars.*
(Stobaeus 3.10.62; G240)
141 He used to say that neither in a rich city nor in a rich household can virtue make its dwelling.
(Stobaeus 4.31.88; G221)
142 He condemned those who, while they praise honest people for having risen above a desire for wealth, yet at the same time envy the extremely rich.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.28; G237)
143 When asked whether a certain man was wealthy, Diogenes replied, ‘I have no idea, because I don’t know how he uses his wealth.’*
(Codex Patmos 263, no. 54; G246B)
144 An uneducated and pretentious man showed him his beautiful house; ‘Very fine,’ he said, ‘altogether admirable, like those Egyptian temples which are most beautifully fitted out and have cats or apes set up inside.’*
(Codex Ambrosianus Graecus 409, no. 117; G236B)
145a When someone conducted him into a magnificent house and warned him not to spit, and he then wanted to clear his throat, he spat into the man’s face, saying that he could not find any worse place. This tale is also recounted about Aristippos.*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.32; G236)
145b While being received in the house of a man who had devoted considerable care to his many possessions, while leaving only himself in utter neglect, Diogenes cleared his throat and looked around him, but instead of choosing any nearby spot, spat directly at the master of the house. And when the man grew angry and asked why he had done that, he said that he could see nothing in the house that had been so neglected as its owner. For every wall was adorned with wonderful paintings, and there were images of the gods on the floor portrayed in magnificent mosaics, and all the furniture was bright and clean, and the coverings and couches were beautifully adorned, leaving their owner as the sole thing there that could be seen to have been neglected; and it is the universal custom in human society to spit in the worst available place.
(Galen, Protreptic 8; G236)
146 Diogenes compared the avaricious to people who are suffering from dropsy;* for just as the latter are full of water and yet yearn all the same for drink, so the avaricious too are replete and yet constantly yearn for more, to equally bad effect in both cases, their passions being heightened still further the more they obtain the objects of their desire.
(Stobaeus 3.10.45; G229)
147 To someone who was buying large quantities of land, he said, ‘If you weren’t held back by your love of money, there wouldn’t be a spot left to which you could extend your lust for endless acquisition.’
(Codex Patmos 263, no. 67; G246D)
148 On seeing an avaricious man being carried out for burial, he said, ‘After living a life that was no life he’s left a living to others.’*
(Codex Palatinus Graecus 297, no. 71, fo. 118r; G231)
149 When reproached for his poverty by someone of bad character, Diogenes said, ‘I’ve never seen anyone put to torture because of his poverty, but any number because of their wickedness.’
(Stobaeus 4.32.12; G224)
150 When someone reproached Diogenes for his poverty, he said, ‘I’ve never seen anyone, you wretch, playing the tyrant because of poverty, but because of riches one and all.’*
(Stobaeus 4.33.26; G225)
151 He said that just as house-slaves are at the beck and call of their masters, so bad people are at the beck and call of their desires.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.66; G318)
152 Those who are in thrall to their stomach and sexual organs and sleep he called triple-slaves.*
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 195; G180)
153 He thought it most odd that when slaves see their masters eating like gluttons, they do not steal some of the food for themselves.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.28; G444)
154 To a man who was having his shoes put on by his servant, he said, ‘You won’t be absolutely happy until he wipes your nose as well; and that will come about when you have lost the use of your hands.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.44; G322)
155 He said that the stomach is a whirlpool* that sucks down one’s livelihood.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.51; G181)
156 He said that the houses that have the most food in them also have many mice and weasels;* and that the bodies that take in much food draw in many diseases likewise.
(Stobaeus 3.6.37; G195)
157 Diogenes laughed at those who lock away their treasures with bolts and locks and seals, but throw open their own body* with all its windows and doors, namely their mouth and genitals and eyes and ears.
(Stobaeus 3.6.17; G317)
158 It is not from barley-eaters that tyrants arise, said Diogenes, but from those who dine on sumptuous fare.
(Julian, Oration 9, 199a; G196)
159 He compared the dissolute to those fig-trees that grow on the precipices, whose fruit is never tasted by any human being, but is eaten by crows and vultures.*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.60; G321)
160 Most rich people can be compared with fruit trees and vines that grow in inaccessible and precipitous locations; for just as the fruit of the latter is not gathered by human beings, but only consumed by crows and similar creatures, so likewise the money of the dissolute, instead of being put aside for appropriate use, is squandered on spongers and whores, and on the most shameful indulgences and emptiest fancies.
(Stobaeus 4.31.48; G242)
161 Seeing a ‘for sale’ sign on the house of a wastrel, he said, ‘I knew that after such a binge you’d soon vomit up your owner.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.47; G233)
162a Seeing a young spendthrift who had squandered his inheritance feeding on bread and olives, and drinking water, he said, ‘If you’d breakfasted in that way by force of reason, you wouldn’t be dining in that way by force of necessity.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 169; G191)
162b Seeing a spendthrift feasting on olives in a tavern, he said, ‘If you’d breakfasted in that way, you wouldn’t be dining in that way.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.50; G191)
163 Love, he said, is the occupation of the unoccupied.*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.51; G198)
164 Lovers, he said, attain their pleasure in their misfortune.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.67; G199)
165 Diogenes offered some advice that was rather coarse in its expression but substantially true when he said, ‘Go to a brothel, lad, and learn that what is worthless differs not at all from what is highly prized.’*
(Plutarch, On the Education of Children 7, 5c; G398)
166 Good-looking courtesans* he compared to a deadly honey-mixture.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.61; G209)
167 Diogenes called the most beautiful courtesans ‘queens’, since many men will fulfil their every command.
(Stobaeus 4.21.15; G208)
168 To one who was pressing a courtesan to grant him her favours, he said, ‘Why so eager, you wretch, to obtain what it is better for you to fail in?’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.66; G210)
169 On the golden statue that Phryne* had dedicated at Delphi Diogenes inscribed the following words: A gift from the licentiousness of the Greeks.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.60; G212)
170 Diogenes the Cynic is generally acknowledged to have been the most steadfast of all men in every activity that demands self-control and endurance, but for all that, even he engaged in sexual activity, because he wanted to free himself from the discomfort that is caused by the retention of the seminal fluid, rather than for the sake of any good that he sought in the pleasure that accompanies its emission. One day, at any rate, so the story goes, when he had arranged for a courtesan to visit him and she was slow to arrive, he grasped his sexual organ in his hand and contrived an emission through masturbation; and afterwards, when the woman arrived, he sent her on her way, saying that he had already sung the marriage-song with his hand.*
(Galen, On Affected Parts 6.15; G197)
171 As Diogenes was once wrestling with an attractive boy, his penis began to stir; and when the boy took alarm and drew back, he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, lad, I’m not of the same mind as that.’*
(Demetrius, On Style 261; G410)
172 When asked what is the right time to marry, he replied, ‘For those who are young, not yet, for those who are older, never at all.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.54; G200)
173 Diogenes considered that there is nothing cheaper than an adulterer, who will throw away his life for what can be bought for a drachma.*
(Stobaeus 3.6.39; G218)
174 How can one mention this saying of Diogenes without shuddering? Something that the philosophers of this world have not been ashamed to cite as something worthy of recall, we can neither repeat nor hear without a sense of shame. When (so the story goes) someone was due to be punished for the crime of adultery, Diogenes said, ‘Don’t buy with your life what is sold for a gift.’
(John Cassian, Conferences 13.5; G219)
175 One day he saw a young man behaving in an effeminate manner. ‘Aren’t you ashamed’, he said, ‘that you should have worse intentions for yourself than nature had? For nature made you a man, and yet here you are, forcing yourself to become a woman.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.65; G403)
176 When he was asked something by an effeminately dressed young man, Diogenes refused to say anything to him unless he first pulled up his clothes to show whether he was a woman or a man.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.46; G403)
177 To a youth who was complaining of the large numbers of men who were pestering him with their attentions, he said, ‘Then stop displaying the signs of your unnatural lusts.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.47; G409)
178 One day he saw a young man engaging in philosophy. ‘It is a fine thing’, he said, ‘that you should cause the lovers of your body to turn to the beauty of your soul.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.58; G397)
179 Seeing a young man who was fair of form and attracted admirers on that account, he said, ‘You should endeavour, young man, to turn lovers of your bodily beauty to love of your soul.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 176; G397)
180 To a young man playing kottabos* in the baths, he said, ‘The better you are, the worse you are.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.46; G401)
181 Seeing a young man going off to dine with some satraps,* he dragged him off to his relations and told them to keep a good eye on him.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.46; G402)
182 To one who prided himself on his good looks, he said, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to attach such importance to your youthful charms, which are only yours on loan and for a short time at that?’
(Gnomologium Parisinum 229)
183 To one who had perfumed himself, he said, ‘Watch out that the fine smell on your head doesn’t cause a stink in your life.’
(Diogenes Laertius 6.66; G325)
184 On seeing a young man who had anointed himself with perfume, Diogenes the Dog said, ‘The fine smell around your head is creating a stink in your life.’
(Codex Parisinus Graecus 1168, no. 14; G407B)
185 Seeing a young man beautifying himself, he said, ‘If that’s for men, you’re a wretch; if it’s for women, you’re a rogue.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 6.54; G405)
186 To wear one’s hair over-short and one’s garments fine beyond necessity is, according to the saying of Diogenes, the behaviour of a wretch or a rogue.
(Basil, De Legendis Libris Gentilium 7; G165)
187 On observing how a young man was priding himself on his expensive cloak, he said, ‘Stop priding yourself on sharing in the good qualities of a sheep.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 177; G407)
188 One day, as Metrocles* recounts in his Anecdotes, he broke in on a young men’s drinking-party with his head half-shaved,* and was greeted with blows. Afterwards he inscribed the names of his assailants on a white tablet, and walked around with it hung around his neck until he had brought disgrace on them, and they were reproached and condemned by everyone.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.33; G412)
189 The Dog called the wine-shops the mess-halls of Attica.*
(Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.10, 1411a 24–5; G184)
190 Diogenes delivered a discourse on moderation and self-control, and when the Athenians applauded him for it, cried, ‘To hell with the lot of you, since you contradict me in everything that you do!’
(Stobaeus 2.15.43; G283)
191 When Diogenes went to Olympia and saw some young men from Rhodes* at the festival dressed in sumptuous clothing, he laughed and said, ‘Sheer vanity!’; and when he then ran across some Spartans in mean and filthy tunics, he said, ‘Just another kind of vanity!’
(Aelian, Historical Miscellany 9.34; G288)
192 He had his feet anointed with perfume,* saying that from one’s head the perfume passes into the air, while from one’s feet it passes up into one’s nostrils.
(Diogenes Laertius 6.39; G324)
193 When he was once dining with King Antigonos* and some scented water was brought in, he rubbed it into his knees; and when the king asked, ‘Why are you doing that?’, he replied, ‘Because when I am lying in bed, I hold my knees up to my nostrils.’
(Gnomologium Parisinum 8)