Diogenes of Sinope
Most famous of the Cynic philosophers of ancient Greece.
Once he saw the officials of a temple leading away some one who had stolen a bowl belonging to the treasurers, and said, "The great thieves are leading away the little thief."
Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself.
To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, "That for which other people pay."
Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, "'Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta."
To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, "Come, see that you obey orders."
Boasting, like gilded armour, is very different inside from outside.
Other dogs bite only their enemies, whereas I bite also my friends in order to save them.
Aristotle dines when it seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases.
The noblest people are those despising wealth, learning, pleasure and life; esteeming above them poverty, ignorance, hardship and death.
Perdiccas threatened to put him to death unless he came to him, "That's nothing wonderful," Diogenes said, "for a beetle or a tarantula would do the same."
If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes.
To one who asked what was the proper time for lunch, he said, "If a rich man, when you will; if a poor man, when you can."
When people laughed at him because he walked backward beneath the portico, he said to them: "Aren't you ashamed, you who walk backward along the whole path of existence, and blame me for walking backward along the path of the promenade?"
Diogenes, in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of Aristippus. The cynic pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the civilisation of the time. He was the nihilist of Hellenism. He created nothing, he made nothing. His role was to undo — or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role?
He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, "To get practice in being refused."
He was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, "A spy upon your insatiable greed."
If you are to be kept right, you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies. The one will warn you, the other will expose you.
It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.
He was going into a theatre, meeting face to face those who were coming out, and being asked why, "This," he said, "is what I practise doing all my life."