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who had been detected stealing purple, and so he said:

A purple death, and mighty fate overtook him.69

When Craterus entreated him to come and visit him, he said: ā€œI would rather lick up salt at Athens than enjoy a luxurious table with Craterus.ā€ On one occasion, he met Anaximenes the orator, who was a fat man, and thus accosted him: ā€œPray give us, who are poor, some of your belly; for by so doing you will be relieved yourself, and you will assist us.ā€ And once, when he was discussing some point, Diogenes held up a piece of salt fish, and drew off the attention of his hearers; and as Anaximenes was indignant at this, he said: ā€œSee, one pennyworth of salt fish has put an end to the lecture of Anaximenes.ā€ Being once reproached for eating in the marketplace, he made answer: ā€œI did, for it was in the marketplace that I was hungry.ā€ Some authors also attribute the following repartee to him. Plato saw him washing vegetables, and so, coming up to him, he quietly accosted him thus: ā€œIf you had paid court to Dionysius, you would not have been washing vegetables.ā€ā ā€”ā€œAnd,ā€ he replied, with equal quietness, ā€œif you had washed vegetables, you would never have paid court to Dionysius.ā€ When a man said to him once: ā€œMost people laugh at you;ā€ā ā€”ā€œAnd very likely,ā€ he replied, ā€œthe asses laugh at them; but they do not regard the asses, neither do I regard them.ā€ Once he saw a youth studying philosophy, and said to him: ā€œWell done; inasmuch as you are leading those who admire your person to contemplate the beauty of your mind.ā€

A certain person was admiring the offerings in the temple at Samothrace,70 and he said to him: ā€œThey would have been much more numerous if those who were lost had offered them instead of those who were saved;ā€ but some attribute this speech to Diagoras the Melian. Once he saw a handsome youth going to a banquet, and said to him: ā€œYou will come back worse (Ļ‡ĪµĪÆĻĻ‰Ī½);ā€ and when he the next day after the banquet said to him, ā€œI have left the banquet, and was no worse for it;ā€ he replied, ā€œYou were not Chiron, but Eurytion.ā€71 He was begging once of a very ill-tempered man, and as he said to him: ā€œIf you can persuade me, I will give you something;ā€ he replied: ā€œIf I could persuade you, I would beg you to hang yourself.ā€ He was on one occasion returning from Lacedaemon to Athens, and when someone asked him: ā€œWhither are you going, and whence do you come?ā€ he said: ā€œI am going from the menā€™s apartments to the womenā€™s.ā€ Another time he was returning from the Olympic games, and when someone asked him whether there had been a great multitude there, he said: ā€œA great multitude, but very few men.ā€ He used to say that debauched men resembled figs growing on a precipice, the fruit of which is not tasted by men, but devoured by crows and vultures. When Phryne had dedicated a golden statue of Venus at Delphi, he wrote upon it: ā€œFrom the profligacy of the Greeks.ā€

Once Alexander the Great came and stood by him, and said: ā€œI am Alexander, the great king.ā€ā ā€”ā€œAnd I,ā€ said he, ā€œam Diogenes the dog.ā€ And when he was asked to what actions of his it was owing that he was called a dog, he said: ā€œBecause I fawn upon those who give me anything, and bark at those who give me nothing, and bite the rogues.ā€ On one occasion he was gathering some of the fruit of a fig-tree, and when the man who was guarding it told him a man hung himself on this tree the other day: ā€œI, then,ā€ said he, ā€œwill now purify it.ā€ Once he saw a man who had been a conqueror at the Olympic games looking very often at a courtesan: ā€œLook,ā€ said he, ā€œat that warlike ram, who is taken prisoner by the first girl he meets.ā€ One of his sayings was, that good-looking courtesans were like poisoned mead.

On one occasion he was eating his dinner in the marketplace, and the bystanders kept constantly calling out ā€œDog;ā€ but he said: ā€œIt is you who are the dogs, who stand around me while I am at dinner.ā€ When two effeminate fellows were getting out of his way, he said: ā€œDo not be afraid, a dog does not eat beetroot.ā€ Being once asked about a debauched boy, as to what country he came from, he said: ā€œHe is a Tegean.ā€72 Seeing an unskillful wrestler professing to heal a man he said: ā€œWhat are you about, are you in hopes now to overthrow those who formerly conquered you?ā€ On one occasion he saw the son of a courtesan throwing a stone at a crowd, and said to him: ā€œTake care, lest you hit your father.ā€ When a boy showed him a sword that he had received from one to whom he had done some discreditable service, he told him: ā€œThe sword is a good sword, but the handle is infamous.ā€ And when some people were praising a man who had given him something, he said to them: ā€œAnd do not you praise me who was worthy to receive it?ā€ He was asked by someone to give him back his cloak, but he replied: ā€œIf you gave it me, it is mine; and if you only lent it me, I am using it.ā€ A supposititious son (į½‘Ļ€ĪæĪ²ĪæĪ»Ī¹Ī¼Ī±įæ–ĪæĻ‚) of somebody once said to him that he had gold in his cloak: ā€œNo doubt,ā€ said he, ā€œthat is the very reason why I sleep with it under my head (į½‘Ļ€ĪæĪ²ĪµĪ²Ī»Ī·Ī¼Ī­Ī½ĪæĻ‚).ā€ When he was asked what advantage he had derived from philosophy, he replied: ā€œIf no other, at least this, that I am prepared for every kind of fortune.ā€ The question was put to him what

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