Quotes by Diogenes

• Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad.
• Stand a little less between me and the sun.
• The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.
• The great thieves lead away the little thief.
• The mob is the mother of tyrants.
• The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.
• We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.
• Man is the most intelligent of the animals - and the most silly.
• What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.
• When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.
• Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.
• The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.
• Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music.
• Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.
• The vine bears three kinds of grapes: the first of pleasure, the second of intoxication, the third of disgust.
• A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.
• It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.
• Blushing is the color of virtue.
• He has the most who is most content with the least.
• I am called a dog because I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.
• I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
• I do not know whether there are gods, but there ought to be.
• I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.
• I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.
• I threw my cup away when I saw a child drinking from his hands at the trough.
• It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.
• It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.
• As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.