A Stoic Breviary: Classical Wisdom in Daily Practice

Building upon many years of privately shared thoughts on the real benefits of Stoic Philosophy, Liam Milburn eventually published a selection of Stoic passages that had helped him to live well. They were accompanied by some of his own personal reflections. This blog hopes to continue his mission of encouraging the wisdom of Stoicism in the exercise of everyday life. All the reflections are taken from his notes, from late 1992 to early 2017.

Friday, June 24, 2022

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 8

Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, Diogenes replied, "Good men nowhere, but good boys at Lacedaemon."

When one day he was gravely discoursing and nobody attended to him, he began whistling, and as people clustered about him, he reproached them with coming in all seriousness to hear nonsense, but slowly and contemptuously when the theme was serious.

He would say that men strive in digging and kicking to outdo one another, but no one strives to become a good man and true.

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.27

IMAGE: Jerome David, Diogenes (c. 1640)

A Stoic Breviary: Classical Wisdom in Daily Practice

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Friday, June 24, 2022

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 8

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