He played a dog's trick and urinated on them. When some strangers expressed a wish to see Demosthenes (*Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman), he stretched out his middle finger and said, ' There goes the demagogue of Athens.' (*a 'demagogue' is called a 'populist' nowadays)Īt a feast certain people kept throwing all the bones to Diogenes as they would to a dog. He was asking alms of a bad-tempered man, who said, ' Yes, if you can persuade me.' 'If I could have persuaded you,' said Diogenes, ' I would have persuaded you to hang yourself.' When Lysias the druggist asked him if he believed in the gods,' How can I help believing in them,' said he, 'when I see a god-forsaken wretch like you?' One day Diogenes shouted out for men, and when people collected, hit out at them with his stick, saying, ' It was men I called for, not scoundrels.'Īfter being banished from Sinope, Diogenes said, ' The Sinopeans have condemned me to banishment I condemn them to stay at home!' Don't hit your father.'ĭiogenes was particularly upset by extravagant and lavish interior decorations, and at one rich man's house, on finding himself surrounded by expensive carpets and sumptuous cushions, Diogenes spat in the owner's face, and then wiped it with his rough cloak and apologized, saying it was the only dirty place in the room he could find to spit. When Diogenes noticed a prostitute's son throwing rocks at crowd, Diogenes said to him ' Careful, son. Once, when watching an incompetent bowman at an archery contest, Diogenes walked over and sat down right next to the target, explaining that it was the only place where he felt safe.

So lets move on to some fast anecdotes of the man himself, which we can fairly to say is cynicsm pur sang. Well I hope this drew a small picture about where this compilation is about and the man behind it.

I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy and bite scoundrels.' His attitude was grounded in his great disdain for what he perceived as the folly, vanity, pretence, self-deception, social climbing, and artificiality of much human conduct. Attracted by the ascetic (cynic school) teaching of Antisthenes, Diogenes came to be his student.:Īntisthenes struck Diogenes with his staff when Diogenes first came to the doors of the cynic school, but Diogenes refused to leave and said ' Strike me, Antisthenes, but you will never find a stick sufficiently hard to remove me from your presence, while you speak anything worth hearing.' Then, Diogenes became a student of Antisthenes.Īs Diogenes gained reputation in the school, he foremost avoided earthly pleasures. The story of how Diogenes and Antisthenes (his former teacher who himself was a student of Socrates) came together is an interesting one. Sold as a slave, he pointed and said, ' Sell me to this man he needs a master.' The man heeded the advice, and entrusted Diogenes with his household and the education of his children. To get back to his society nickname “dog” I kick off the first few anecdotes that makes this compilation from the cynic:Īs to why he was called a dog, Diogenes replied, ' Because I fawn upon those who give me anything, and bark at those who give me nothing, and bite the rogues. I've never found and I believe I neither shall, one of his caliber. He was a man on his own, his name Diogenes and lived in the City Sinope. In any way whether he was seen as a bum, a grumpy old man or as a dog. In fact, Diogenes teacher Antisthenes - pupil of Socrates - founded the Greek school of cynicism, and Diogenes was and is the most notorious cynic. It was this ultimate determination to follow his own dictates and not adhere to the conventions of society, that he was given the epithet 'dog,' from which the name 'cynic' is derive. He lived in a barrel, lived naked and aside the common society. He lived his life in extreme simplicity, inured to want, and without shame. 412 - 323 B.C.)ĭiogenes is often considered one of the more eccentric, or at the very least untraditional, of the ancient Greek philosophers. Diogenes of Sinope ( aka Diogenes the Cynic/Dog) (c.

Diogenes of sinope memd