Dio Chrysostom on Diogenes of Sinope

“When some people urged that it is impossible for man to live like the animals owing to the tenderness of his flesh and because he is naked and unprotected, [Diogenes] would say in reply that men are so very tender because of their mode of life. ... Man’s ingenuity and his discovering and contriving so many helps to life had not been altogether advantageous to later generations, since men do not employ their cleverness to promote courage or justice, but to procure pleasure.”

“When [Diogenes] observed how other men were harassed throughout their whole lives, ever plotting against one another, ever encompassed by a thousand ills and never able to enjoy a moment’s rest, nay, not even during the great festivals nor when they proclaimed a truce; and when he beheld that they did or suffered all this simply in order to keep themselves alive, and that their greatest fear was lest their so-called necessities should fail them, and how, furthermore, they planned and strove to leave great riches to their children, he marvelled that he too did not do the like, but was the only independent man in the world.”

“[Diogenes] was surprised by the fact that had he claimed to be a physician for the teeth, everybody would flock to him who needed to have a tooth pulled; yes, and by heavens, had he professed to treat the eyes, all who were suffering from sore eyes would present themselves, and similarly, if he had claimed to know of a medicine for diseases of the spleen or for gout or for running of the nose; but when he declared that all who should follow his treatment would be relieved of folly, wickedness, and intemperance, not a man would listen to him or seek to be cured by him, ... as though it were worse for a man to suffer from an enlarged spleen or a decayed tooth than from a soul that is foolish, ignorant, cowardly, rash, pleasure-loving, illiberal, irascible, unkind, and wicked, in fact utterly corrupt.”

“All articles of great expense, of vexatious and operose provision, [Diogenes] disallowed, and demonstrated their pernicious effects upon the user; yet forbade none of those bodily conveniences, which may be procured without difficulty and molestation, whether to alleviate cold or hunger or other craving appetites, but manifested by his own practice a preference to healthy situations before sickly, and to such as were more tolerable than others through all the vicissitudes of seasons. Nor was he less attentive to a plentiful supply of wholesome food, and a moderate portion of apparel: but kept himself aloof from public business, from lawsuits, from animosities, from wars and political conspiracies. The life of the Gods was the principal model of his practice: for Homer characterizes them as living at their ease with reference to the laborious and troublesome condition of mankind.”