And he addressed a man who was buying delicacies at a great expense:—
“Not long, my son, will you on earth remain,
If such your dealings.”[66]
When Plato was discoursing about his “ideas,” and using the nouns “tableness” and “cupness;” “I, O Plato!” interrupted Diogenes, “see a table and a cup, but I see no tableness or cupness.” Plato made answer, “That is natural enough, for you have eyes, by which a cup and a table are contemplated; but you have not intellect, by which tableness and cupness are seen.”
On one occasion, he was asked by a certain person, “What sort of a man, O Diogenes, do you think Socrates?” and he said, “A madman.” Another time, the question was put to him, when a man ought to marry? and his reply was, “Young men ought not to marry yet, and old men never ought to marry at all.” When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on the head? he replied, “A helmet.” Seeing a youth smartening himself up very carefully, he said to him, “If you are doing that for men, you are miserable; and if for women, you are profligate.” Once he saw a youth blushing, and addressed him, “Courage, my boy, that is the complexion of virtue.” Having once listened to two lawyers, he condemned them both; saying, “That the one had stolen the thing in question, and that the other had not lost it.” When asked what wine he liked to drink, he said, “That which belongs to another.” A man said to him one day, “Many people laugh at you.” “But I,” he replied, “am not laughed down.” When a man said to him, that it was a bad thing to live; “Not to live,” said he, “but to live badly.” When some people were advising him to make search for a slave who had run away, he said, “It would be a very absurd thing for Manes to be able to live without Diogenes, but for Diogenes not to be able to live without Manes.” When he was dining on olives, a cheese-cake was brought in, on which he threw the olive away, saying:—
Keep well aloof, O stranger, from all tyrants.[67]
And presently he added:—
He drove the olive off (μαστίξεν δ’ ἐλάαν).[68]
When he was asked what sort of a dog he was, he replied, “When hungry, I am a dog of Melita; when satisfied, a Molossian; a sort which most of those who praise, do not like to take out hunting with them, because of the labour of keeping up with them; and in like manner, you cannot associate with me, from fear of the pain I give you.” The question was put to him, whether wise men ate cheese-cakes, and he replied, “They eat everything, just as the rest of mankind.” When asked why people give to beggars and not to philosophers, he said, “Because they think it possible that they themselves may become lame and blind, but they do not expect ever to turn out philosophers.” He once begged of a covetous man, and as he was slow to give, he said, “Man, I am asking you for something to maintain me (εἰς τροφὴν) and not to bury me (εἰς ταφὴν).” When some one reproached him for having tampered with the coinage, he said, “There was a time when I was such a person as you are now; but there never was when you were such as I am now, and never will be.” And to another person who reproached him on the same grounds, he said, “There were times when I did what I did not wish to, but that is not the case now.” When he went to Myndus, he saw some very large gates, but the city was a small one, and so he said, “Oh men of Myndus, shut your gates, lest your city should steal out.” On one occasion, he saw a man who had been detected stealing purple, and so he said:—
A purple death, and mighty fate overtook him.[69]