Diogenes Quotes
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No man is hurt but by himself. ...Literally by how he interprets what happens to him. If he focusses on how it could have been better, he will be hurt. If he focusses on how it could have been worse, he will be happy. The same is true for women too.
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Self-taught poverty is a help toward philosophy, for the things which philosophy attempts to teach by reasoning, poverty forces us to practice.
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Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, "Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta."
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It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.
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Protagoras asserted that there are two sides to every question, exactly opposite to each other.
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He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of "dog." "It is you who are dogs," cried he, "when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast."
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Ability in man is an apt good, if it be applied to good ends.
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Nothing can be produced out of nothing.
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We come into the world alone and we die alone. Why, in life, should we be any less alone?
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One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings.
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The mob is the mother of tyrants.
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The health and vigor necessary for the practice of what is good, depend equally on both mind and body.
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By worrying as little as possible about fame.
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When two friends part they should lock up each other's secrets and exchange keys. The truly noble mind has no resentments.
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Man is the most intelligent of the animals - and the most silly.
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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."
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To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, "Come, see that you obey orders."
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Modesty is the color of virtue.
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Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad.
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Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?
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On being asked by someone how he could become famous, Diogenes responded: 'By worrying as little as possible about fame.
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Even if I am but a pretender to wisdom, that in itself is philosophy.
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Chilo advised, "not to speak evil of the dead."
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He was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, "A spy upon your insatiable greed."