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Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 28


Rhetoricians and all who talked for reputation Diogenes used to call "thrice human," meaning thereby "thrice wretched." 

An ignorant rich man he used to call "the sheep with the golden fleece." 

Seeing a notice on the house of a profligate, "To be sold," he said, "I knew well that after such surfeiting you would throw up the owner." 

To a young man who complained of the number of people who annoyed him by their attentions he said, "Cease to hang out a sign of invitation." 

Of a public bath which was dirty he said, "When people have bathed here, where are they to go to get clean?" 

There was a stout musician whom everybody depreciated and Diogenes alone praised. When asked why, he said, "Because being so big, he yet sings to his lute and does not turn brigand." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.47 


 

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