When asked what animal had the worst bite, he said, "Of wild beasts, the sycophant; and of tame creatures, the flatterer."
Being asked when was the proper time to marry, he responded, "For young men, not yet; and for old men, not at all."
When he was asked what sort of wine he enjoyed drinking, he answered, "Another man's." [Of a different temper was Dante, who knew too well "how salt the bread of others tastes!">[
Some one advised him to hunt up his runaway slave. But he replied, "It is ridiculous if Manes lives without Diogenes, but Diogenes cannot without Manes."
When asked why men give to beggars, but not to philosophers, he said, "Because they expect themselves to become lame and blind; but philosophers, never!"
Cleanthes
When a comic actor apologized for having ridiculed him from the stage, he answered gently, "It would be preposterous, when Bacchus and Hercules bear the raillery of the poets without showing any anger, if I should be indignant when I chance to be attacked."
Pythagoras
Precepts
Do not stir the fire with a sword.
Do not devour your heart.
Always have your bed packed up.
Do not walk in the main street.
Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.
Avoid a sharp sword.
When you travel abroad, look not back at your own borders.
[Diogenes explains this: be resigned to death.]
Consider nothing exclusively your own.
Destroy no cultivated tree, or harmless animal.
Modesty and decorum consist in never yielding to laughter, and yet not looking stern. [Cf. Emerson on Manners.]
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by William C. Lawton.