Quotes from Diogenes Laertius

Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words.

That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.

Diogenes lighted a candle in the daytime, and went round saying, "I am looking for a man.

Aristippus said that a wise man's country was the world.

Diogenes said once to a person who was showing him a dial, "It is a very useful thing to save a man from being too late for supper.

Xenophanes speaks thus:-And no man knows distinctly anything,And no man ever will.

The Stoics also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind and Fate and Jupiter, and by many other names besides.

Heraclitus says that Pittacus, when he had got Alcæus into his power, released him, saying, "Forgiveness is better than revenge.

Anarcharsis, on learning that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, said that "the passengers were just that distance from death.

Nothing can be produced out of nothing.

Time is the image of eternity.

There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law.

When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, "Not to unlearn what you have learned!"

Thales said there was no difference between life and death. Why, then, said some one to him, do not you die? Because, said he, it does make no difference.

Time is the image of eternity.

A man once asked Diogenes what was the proper time for supper, and he made answer, "If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can.

Time is the most valuable thing that a man can spend.

Socrates said, "Those who want fewest things are nearest to the gods.

Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, "The descent to Hades is the same from every place.

Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, "Those things which they will put in practice when they become men.

Euripides says,-Who knows but that this life is really death,And whether death is not what men call life?

If appearances are deceitful, then they do not deserve any confidence when they assert what appears to them to be true.

Courage, my boy! that is the complexion of virtue.

We are more curious about the meaning of dreams than about things we see when awake.