Vitae philosophorum
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.
One day seeing a runaway slave sitting on the brink of a well, he said, Take care, my lad, you don’t fall in. Seeing a boy taking clothes at the baths, he asked, Is it for a little unguent (ἀλειμμάτιον) or is it for a new cloak (ἄλλʼ ἱμάτιον)? Seeing some women hanged from an olive-tree, he said, Would that every tree bore similar fruit. On seeing a footpad he accosted him thus:
Being asked whether he had any maid or boy to wait on him, he said No. If you should die, then, who will carry you out to burial? Whoever wants the house, he replied.What mak’st thou here, my gallant?
- Com’st thou perchance for plunder of the dead?[*](Hom. Il. x. 343, 387.)
Noticing a good-looking youth lying in an exposed position, he nudged him and cried, Up, man, up, lest some foe thrust a dart into thy back! To one who was feasting lavishly he said:
Short-liv’d thou’lt be, my son, by what thou—buy’st.[*](Cf. Hom. Il. v. 40, xviii. 95.)As Plato was conversing about Ideas and using the nouns tablehood and cuphood, he said, Table and cup I see; but your tablehood and cuphood, Plato, I can nowise see. That’s readily accounted for, said Plato, for you have the eyes to see the visible table and cup; but not the understanding by which ideal tablehood and cuphood are discerned.
On being asked by somebody, What sort of a man do you consider Diogenes to be? A Socrates gone mad, said he.[*](i.e. Plato. This anecdote is found in Aelian, Var. Hist. xiv. 33 εἰώθει δέ, φασίν, ὁ Πλάτων περὶ Διογένους λέγειν ὅτι μαινόμενος οὗτος Σωκράτης ἐστίν.) Being asked what was the right time to marry, Diogenes replied, For a young man not yet: for an old man never at all. Being asked what he would take to be soundly cuffed, he replied, A helmet. Seeing a youth dressing with elaborate care, he said, If it’s for men, you’re a fool; if for women, a knave. One day he detected a youth blushing. Courage, quoth he, that is the hue
When some one declared that life is an evil, he corrected him: Not life itself, but living ill. When he was advised to go in pursuit of his runaway slave, he replied, It would be absurd, if Manes can live without Diogenes, but Diogenes cannot get on without Manes. When breakfasting on olives amongst which a cake had been inserted, he flung it away and addressed it thus:
Stranger, betake thee from the princes’ path.[*](Eur. Phoen. 40.)And on another occasion thus:
He lashed an olive.[*](Hom. Il. v. 366, viii. 45. In the Homeric lines, however, ἐλάαν is a verb in the infinitive mood: he lashed the steeds to make them run.)Being asked what kind of hound he was, he replied, When hungry, a Maltese; when full, a Molossian —two breeds which most people praise, though for fear of fatigue they do not venture out hunting with them. So neither can you live with me, because you are afraid of the discomforts.
Being asked if the wise eat cakes, Yes, he said, cakes of all kinds, just like other men. Being asked why people give to beggars but not to philosophers, he said, Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy. He was begging of a miserly man who was slow to respond; so he
said, My friend, it’s for food that I’m asking, not for funeral expenses. Being reproached one day for having falsified the currency, he said, That was the time when I was such as you are now; but such as I am now, you will never be. To another who reproached him for the same offence he made a more scurrilous repartee.