Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 37

Being asked if the wise eat cakes, "Yes," Diogenes 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 offense he made a more scurrilous repartee. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.56 

IMAGE: Carlo Dolci, Diogenes (c. 1650)