Diogenes Laërtius Quotes

97 Sourced Quotes

Xenophanes speaks thus:—
And no man knows distinctly anything,
And no man ever will.

Diogenes Laërtius
Heraclitus says that Pittacus, when he had got Alcæus into his power, released him, saying, "Forgiveness is better than revenge."

Diogenes Laërtius
Bias used to say that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time, and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were bad.

Diogenes Laërtius
Once Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, ridiculed him as he passed by, and said, "If you had learnt to eat these vegetables, you would not have been a slave in the palace of a tyrant." But Aristippus replied, "And you, if you had known how to behave among men, would not have been washing vegetables."

Diogenes Laërtius
When Zeno was asked what a friend was, he replied, "Another I."

Diogenes Laërtius
When he was praised by some wicked men, he said, "I am sadly afraid that I must have done some wicked thing."

Diogenes Laërtius
The mountains, too, at a distance appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand, they are rough.

Diogenes Laërtius
He said that men ought to remember those friends who were absent as well as those who were present.

Diogenes Laërtius
Very late in life, when he was studying geometry, some one said to Lacydes, "Is it then a time for you to be learning now?" "If it is not," he replied, "when will it be?"

Diogenes Laërtius
Protagoras asserted that there were two sides to every question, exactly opposite to each other.

Diogenes Laërtius
Epimenides was sent by his father into the field to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid-day and lay down in a certain cave and fell asleep, and slept there fifty-seven years; and after that, when awake, he went on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short nap.

Diogenes Laërtius
Socrates said, "Those who want fewest things are nearest to the gods."

Diogenes Laërtius
They say that the first inclination which an animal has is to protect itself.

Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes lighted a candle in the daytime, and went round saying, "I am looking for a man."

Diogenes Laërtius
When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on the head, he said, "A helmet."

Diogenes Laërtius
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.

Diogenes Laërtius
The market is a place set apart where men may deceive each other.

Diogenes Laërtius
There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law.

Diogenes Laërtius
Once when Bion was at sea in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates; and when the rest said, "We are undone if we are known,"—"But I," said he, "am undone if we are not known."

Diogenes Laërtius
Among what he called his precepts were such as these: Do not stir the fire with a sword. Do not sit down on a bushel. Do not devour thy heart.

Diogenes Laërtius
Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, "The descent to Hades is the same from every place."

Diogenes Laërtius
The question was put to him, what hope is; and his answer was, "The dream of a waking man."

Diogenes Laërtius
When asked what wine he liked to drink, he replied, "That which belongs to another."

Diogenes Laërtius
Asked what he gained from philosophy, he answered, "To do without being commanded what others do from fear of the laws."

Diogenes Laërtius
He said that there was one only good, namely, knowledge; and one only evil, namely, ignorance.

Diogenes Laërtius
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more.

Diogenes Laërtius
When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, "To know one's self." And what was easy, "To advise another."

Diogenes Laërtius
Anarcharsis, on learning that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, said that "the passengers were just that distance from death."

Diogenes Laërtius
Bion insisted on the principle that "The property of friends is common."

Diogenes Laërtius
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.

Diogenes Laërtius