Diogenes Laërtius Quotes

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That virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness.

Diogenes Laërtius
One of the sophisms of Chrysippus was, "If you have not lost a thing, you have it."

Diogenes Laërtius
He alludes to the appearance of a face in the orb of the moon.

Diogenes Laërtius
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."

Diogenes Laërtius
Writers differ with respect to the apophthegms of the Seven Sages, attributing the same one to various authors.

Diogenes Laërtius
When a man reproached him for going into unclean places, he said, "The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them."

Diogenes Laërtius
He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him.

Diogenes Laërtius
He used to say that it was better to have one friend of great value than many friends who were good for nothing.

Diogenes Laërtius
Aristophanes turns Socrates into ridicule in his comedies, as making the worse appear the better reason.

Diogenes Laërtius
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."

Diogenes Laërtius
If appearances are deceitful, then they do not deserve any confidence when they assert what appears to them to be true.

Diogenes Laërtius
Pythagoras used to say that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into all sorts of plants or animals.

Diogenes Laërtius
Aristippus said that a wise man's country was the world.

Diogenes Laërtius
The Stoics also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind and Fate and Jupiter, and by many other names besides.

Diogenes Laërtius
"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."

Diogenes Laërtius
Epicurus laid down the doctrine that pleasure was the chief good.

Diogenes Laërtius
He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin.

Diogenes Laërtius
Plato affirmed that the soul was immortal and clothed in many bodies successively.

Diogenes Laërtius
That the gods superintend all the affairs of men, and that there are such beings as demons.

Diogenes Laërtius
One of the sayings of Diogenes was that most men were within a finger's breadth of being mad; for if a man walked with his middle finger pointing out, folks would think him mad, but not so if it were his forefinger.

Diogenes Laërtius
Xenophanes was the first person who asserted... that the soul is a spirit.

Diogenes Laërtius
Euripides says,—
Who knows but that this life is really death,
And whether death is not what men call life?

Diogenes Laërtius
In the time of Pythagoras that proverbial phrase Ipse dixit was introduced into ordinary life.

Diogenes Laërtius
They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the universe and of all that is in the universe; however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator of the universe, and as it were the Father of all things in common, and that a portion of him pervades everything.

Diogenes Laërtius
Alcæus mentions Aristodemus in these lines:—
'T is money makes the man; and he who 's none
Is counted neither good nor honourable.

Diogenes Laërtius
Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down."

Diogenes Laërtius
Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust.

Diogenes Laërtius
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.

Diogenes Laërtius
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.

Diogenes Laërtius
The question was once put to him, how we ought to behave to our friends; and the answer he gave was, "As we should wish our friends to behave to us."

Diogenes Laërtius