The musician who was always deserted by his audience he greeted with a Hail chanticleer, and when asked why he so addressed him, replied, Because your song makes every one get up. A young man was delivering a set speech, when Diogenes, having filled the front fold of his dress with lupins, began to eat them, standing right opposite to him. Having thus drawn off the attention of the assemblage, he said he was greatly surprised that they should desert the orator to look at himself. A very superstitious person addressed him thus, With one blow I will break your head. And I, said Diogenes, by a sneeze from the left will make you tremble. Hegesias having asked him to lend him one of his writings, he said, You are a simpleton, Hegesias; you do not choose painted figs, but real ones; and yet you pass over the true training and would apply yourself to written rules.
The quote: When some one reproached him with his exile, his reply was, Nay, it was through that, you miserable fellow, that I came to be a philosopher. Again, when some one reminded him that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, And I them, said he, to home-staying.
Once he saw an Olympic victor tending sheep and thus accosted him: Too quickly, my good friend, have you left Olympia for Nemea. Being asked why athletes are so stupid, his answer was, Because they are built up of pork and beef. He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, To get practice in being refused. In asking alms —as he did at first by reason of his poverty— he used this form: If you have already given to anyone else, give to me also; if not, begin with me.
