Diogenes Laertius
Native of Laerte in Cilicia, was a biographer of ancient Greek philosophers.
Often when he was looking on at auctions he would say, "How many things there are which I do not need!"
He used to teach that God is incorporeal, as Plato also asserted, and that his providence extends over all the heavenly bodies.
Just step aside for me to enjoy the sunshine.
It was a saying of his that education was an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
Plato affirmed that the soul was immortal and clothed in many bodies successively.
It was a common saying of Myson that men ought not to investigate things from words, but words from things; for that things are not made for the sake of words, but words for things.
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him.
But Chrysippus, Posidonius, Zeno, and Boëthus say, that all things are produced by fate. And fate is a connected cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated.
Thales said there was no difference between life and death. "Why, then," said some one to him, "do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does make no difference."
Aristophanes turns Socrates into ridicule in his comedies, as making the worse appear the better reason.
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.
Another was, "Watch your opportunity."
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.
One of the sophisms of Chrysippus was, "If you have not lost a thing, you have it."
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.
When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on the head, he said, "A helmet."
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."
He used to say that other men lived to eat, but that he ate to live.
"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."
"Be of good cheer," said Diogenes; "I see land."