On one occasion he was blamed for giving alms to a worthless man, and he replied, “I did not pity the man, but his condition.”
He was accustomed continually to say to his friends and pupils wherever he happened to be, “That sight receives the light from the air which surrounds it, and in like manner the soul receives the light from the science.”
Very often, when he was inveighing against the Athenians, he would say that they had invented both wheat and laws, but that they used only the wheat and neglected the laws.
It was a saying of his that the roots of education were bitter, but the fruit sweet.
Once he was asked what grew old most speedily, and he replied, “Gratitude.”
On another occasion the question was put to him, what hope is? and his answer was, “The dream of a waking man.”
Diogenes once offered him a dry fig, and as he conjectured that if he did not take it the cynic had a witticism ready prepared, he accepted it, and then said that Diogenes had lost his joke and his fig too; and another time when he took one from him as he offered it, he held it up as a child does, and said, “O great Diogenes;” and then he gave it to him back again.
He used to say that there were three things necessary to education; natural qualifications, instruction, and practice.
Having heard that he was abused by some one, he said, “He may beat me too, if he likes, in my absence.”
He used to say that beauty is the best of all recommendations, but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this description of it; and that Aristotle called beauty, “The gift of a fair appearance,” that Socrates called it “A short-lived tyranny;” Plato, “The privilege of nature;” Theophrastus, “A silent deceit;” Theocritus, “An ivory mischief;” Carneades, “A sovereignty which stood in need of no guards.”