Diogenes Laertius
Native of Laerte in Cilicia, was a biographer of ancient Greek philosophers.
The apophthegm "Know thyself" is his.
Diogenes would frequently praise those who were about to marry, and yet did not marry.
"Be of good cheer," said Diogenes; "I see land."
Time is the image of eternity.
Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he, "That when they speak truth they are not believed."
The mountains, too, at a distance appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand, they are rough.
Chilo advised, "not to speak evil of the dead."
Aristippus said that a wise man’s country was the world.
Diogenes lighted a candle in the daytime, and went round saying, "I am looking for a man."
Pythagoras used to say that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into all sorts of plants or animals.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him.
"Bury me on my face," said Diogenes; and when he was asked why, he replied, "Because in a little while everything will be turned upside down."
He used to say that other men lived to eat, but that he ate to live.
Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, "Those things which they will put in practice when they become men."
When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on the head, he said, "A helmet."
There are many marvellous stories told of Pherecydes. For it is said that he was walking along the seashore at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing by with a fair wind, he said that it would soon sink; and presently it sank before his eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which had been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three days there would be an earthquake; and there was one.
One of the sophisms of Chrysippus was, "If you have not lost a thing, you have it."
Solon used to say that speech was the image of actions;... that laws were like cobwebs,—for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; while if it were something weightier, it broke through them and was off.
Another was, "Watch your opportunity."
Anaximander used to assert that the primary cause of all things was the Infinite,—not defining exactly whether he meant air or water or anything else.