Seeing a young man behaving effeminately, "Are you not ashamed," Diogenes said, "that your own intention about yourself should be worse than nature's? For nature made you a man, but you are forcing yourself to play the woman."
Observing a fool tuning a psaltery, "Are you not ashamed," said he, "to give this wood concordant sounds, while you fail to harmonize your soul with life?"
To one who protested that he was ill adapted for the study of philosophy, he said, "Why then do you live, if you do not care to live well?"
To one who despised his father, "Are you not ashamed," he said, "to despise him to whom you owe it that you can so pride yourself?"
Noticing a handsome youth chattering in unseemly fashion, "Are you not ashamed," he said, "to draw a dagger of lead from an ivory scabbard?"
IMAGE: Giovan Battista Langetti, Diogenes (c. 1660)
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