Verified Quotes
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Diogenes of Sinope, Greek Cynic who lived in a jar, owned almost nothing, and told Alexander the Great to stop blocking his, gets quoted everywhere and sourced almost nowhere. The 9 quotes below are different: each one is checked word for word against the cited work, starting with Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, not copied from aggregator sites that pass misattributions along. The source is named under every line, so you can trace each quote back to the page it came from.
Read Diogenes of Sinope's full profile and how they reason →9 verified quotes
On refusing a favor from someone more powerful than you:
Stand a little out of my sun.Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
On searching for one honest person in a crowd:
I am looking for a man.Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
On refusing to let your hometown define you:
I am a citizen of the world.Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
On owning fewer things than you think you need:
A child has beaten me in plainness of living.Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
On deciding whether now is the time to marry:
Young man, not yet; old man, not at all.Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
On turning banishment into a verdict of your own:
And I sentence them to stay at home.Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
On deciding who actually deserves your loyalty:
I fawn on those who give me anything, I bark at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
On what philosophy is actually good for when things fall apart:
If nothing else, at least to be prepared for every fortune.Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
On why he begged from a statue before asking people for anything:
To get practice in being refused.Diogenes of Sinope, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers