Variant: If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly as it is to masturbate.When scolded for masturbating in public, he said 'I wish it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly.'.Once he saw the officials of a temple leading away some one who had stolen a bowl belonging to the treasurers, and said, 'The great thieves are leading away the little thief.'.

Perdiccas threatened to put him to death unless he came to him, 'That's nothing wonderful,' Diogenes said, 'for a beetle or a tarantula would do the same.'.He was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, 'A spy upon your insatiable greed.'.This line is frequently translated as 'I am looking for an honest man.' He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, 'I am looking for a human.'.To one who asked what was the proper time for lunch, he said, 'If a rich man, when you will if a poor man, when you can.'.Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, 'Behold Plato's man!' Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded.37, as reported in Diogenes the Cynic: Sayings and Anecdotes as translated by Robin Hard ( Oxford: 2012), p. He used to reason as follows: 'Everything belongs to the gods the wise are friends of the gods friends hold all things in common ergo, everything belongs to the wise.'.One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, 'A child has beaten me in plainness of living.'.To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, 'Come, see that you obey orders.'.When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, 'Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves.'.Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, ''Good men nowhere, but good boys at Sparta.'.Once when he stretched out his staff against him, the pupil offered his head with the words, “Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say.' Being repulsed by him, because he never welcomed pupils, by sheer persistence Diogenes wore him out. On reaching Athens he fell in with Antisthenes.

Greek philosopher diogenes