The most momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or to evil.
From Lives of Eminent
Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 349, tr. R.
D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
And virtue in itself they hold to be worthy of choice for its own sake. At all events we are ashamed of bad conduct as if we knew that nothing is really good but the morally beautiful.
From Lives of Eminent
Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 233, tr. R.
D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
He used to complain of mankind that in purchasing earthenware they made trial whether it rang true, but had no regular standard by which to judge life.
From Lives of Eminent
Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. I, p. 207, tr. R.
D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
When someone brought his son as a pupil, he asked a fee of 500 drachmae. The father objected, "For that sum I can buy a slave." "Then do so," was the reply, "and you will have two."
From Lives of Eminent
Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 201, tr. R.
D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
Being asked what is difficult, he replied, "To know oneself." "What is easy?" "To give advice to another."
From Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,... when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, had taken Megara, he took measures that Stilpo's house should be preserved and all his plundered property restored to him. But when he requested that a schedule of the lost property should be drawn up, Stilpo denied that he had lost anything which really belonged to him, for no one had taken away his learning, while he still had his eloquence and knowledge.
From Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. I, p. 244-5, tr. R. D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
The story is told that once, when he asked Euathlus his disciple for his fee, the latter replied, "but I have not won a case yet." "Nay," said Protagoras, "if I win this case against you I must have the fee, for winning it; if you win, I must have it, because you win it."
From Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 469, tr. R. D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
Once
when somebody reproached him for not going with the multitude to hear Ariston,
he rejoined, "If I had followed the multitude, I should not have studied
philosophy."
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 291, tr. R. D. Hicks,
Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
Myson
of Etis
He
used to say we should not investigate facts by the light of arguments, but
arguments by the light of facts; for the facts were not put together to fit
the arguments, but the arguments to fit the facts.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. I, p. 113, tr. R. D. Hicks,
Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
People
must fight for the law as for city-walls.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 409, tr. R. D. Hicks,
Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
He was the first to suspend his judgement owning to the contradictions of opposing arguments. ... According to some, one result of his suspending judgment on all matters was that he never so much as wrote a book.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. I, pp. 405,
409, tr. R. D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
Prefer
a loss to a dishonest gain: the one brings pain at the moment, the other for
all time.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. I, p. 71,
tr. R. D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
It
is better, he said, to be a beggar than to be
uneducated; the one needs money, the others need to be humanized.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 199, tr. R. D.
Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
It is
stated that Socrates in a dream saw a cygnet on his knees, which all at once
put forth plumage, and flew away after uttering a loud sweet note. And the next day Plato was introduced as a
pupil, and thereupon he recognized in him the swan of his dream.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. I, p.
281, tr. R. D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
Now
from falsehood there results perversion, which extends to the mind; and from
this perversion arise many passions or emotions, which are causes of
instability. Passion, or emotion, is
defined by Zeno as an irrational and unnatural movement in the soul, or again
as impulse in excess.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 217, tr. R. D.
Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
Friendship
exists only between the wise and good, by reason of their likeness to one
another. And by friendship [is meant] a
common use of all that has to do with life, wherein we treat our friends as we
should ourselves.
a friend is worth having for his
own sake and
it is a good thing to have many friends. But among the bad there is
no such thing as
friendship, and thus no bad man has a friend.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 229, tr. R. D.
Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
Being
asked what he had gained from philosophy, he replied, the ability to feel at
ease in any society.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. I, p. 197,
tr. R. D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
It
was he who first declared that the Evening and Morning Stars are
the same, as Parmenides maintains.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 333, tr. R. D.
Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
Let
no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor
weary in the search thereof when he is grown old.For no age is too
early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. II, p. 649, tr. R. D.
Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
He used to say it was strange that, if you asked a man how many sheep he had, he could easily tell you the precise number; whereas he could not name his friends or say how>manyhe had, so slight was the value he set upon them.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol. I, p. 161, tr. R. D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
Apollonius
of Tyre tells us how, when Crates laid hold on him
by the cloak to drag him from, Zeno said, the right way to seize a philosopher, Crates, is by the
ears: persuade me then and drag me off by them; but if you use violence my body will be with you, but my mind with Stilpo.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol.
II, pp. 136-7, tr. R. D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
He
used to say, as we learn from Hecato in his Anecdotes, that it is better to fall in with crows than with flatters;
for in the one case you are devoured when dead, in the other case while alive.
From
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
vol.
II, p. 7, tr. R. D. Hicks, Harvard, Loeb Classical Library.
He was once asked, what those who tell lies gain by it; "They gain this," said he, "that when they speak truth they are not believed."
From Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius,
p. 187, tr. C. D. Young, Oxford University Press.