Diogenes Laërtius Quotes
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The chief good is the suspension of the judgment, which tranquillity of mind follows like its shadow.
Pyrrho, 11. 
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More Diogenes Laërtius Quotes
Among what he called his precepts were such as these: Do not stir the fire with a sword. Do not sit down on a bushel. Do not devour thy heart.
Diogenes Laërtius— Pythagoras, 17.
Protagoras asserted that there were two sides to every question, exactly opposite to each other.
Diogenes Laërtius— Protagoras, 3.
He used to say that personal beauty was a better introduction than any letter; 18 but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this description of it, while Aristotle called beauty "the gift of God"; that Socrates called it "a short-lived tyranny"; Theophrastus , "a silent deceit"; Theocritus , "an ivory mischief"; Carneades , "a sovereignty which stood in need of no guards".
Diogenes Laërtius— The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics, Aristotle, 9.
When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, "To know one’s self." And what was easy, "To advise another."
Diogenes Laërtius— Thales, 9.
He said that men ought to remember those friends who were absent as well as those who were present.
Diogenes Laërtius— Thales, 9.
The apophthegm "Know thyself" is his.
Diogenes Laërtius— Thales, 13. Compare" "There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man’s life: 'Know thyself', and 'Nothing too much'; and upon these all other precepts depend", Plutarch, Consolation to Apollonius.
One of his sayings was, "Even the gods cannot strive against necessity."
Diogenes Laërtius— Pittacus, 4.
Another was, "Watch your opportunity."
Diogenes Laërtius— Pittacus, 7.
Bias used to say that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time, and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were bad.
Diogenes Laërtius— Bias, 5.
He used to say that other men lived to eat, but that he ate to live.
Diogenes Laërtius— Socrates, 16.
Anarcharsis, on learning that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, said that "the passengers were just that distance from death."
Diogenes Laërtius— Anarcharsis, 5.
He used to say that it was better to have one friend of great value than many friends who were good for nothing.
Diogenes Laërtius— Anarcharsis, 5.
Aristippus said that a wise man’s country was the world.
Diogenes Laërtius— Aristippus, 13.
Once when Bion was at sea in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates; and when the rest said, "We are undone if we are known,"—"But I," said he, "am undone if we are not known."
Diogenes Laërtius— Bion, 3.
Wealth is the sinews of affairs.
Diogenes Laërtius— Bion, 48.
The road to Hades is the easiest to travel.
Diogenes Laërtius— Bion, 49.
The question was once put to him, how we ought to behave to our friends; and the answer he gave was, "As we should wish our friends to behave to us."
Diogenes Laërtius— Aristotle, 9.
He used to define justice as "a virtue of the soul distributing that which each person deserved."
Diogenes Laërtius— Aristotle, 9.
Another of his sayings was, that education was the best viaticum of old age.
Diogenes Laërtius— Aristotle, 9.
One of the sayings of Diogenes was that most men were within a finger’s breadth of being mad; for if a man walked with his middle finger pointing out, folks would think him mad, but not so if it were his forefinger.
Diogenes Laërtius— Diogenes, 6.
All things are in common among friends.
Diogenes Laërtius— Diogenes, 6.
When a man reproached him for going into unclean places, he said, "The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them."
Diogenes Laërtius— Diogenes, 6.
Diogenes said once to a person who was showing him a dial, "It is a very useful thing to save a man from being too late for supper."
Diogenes Laërtius— Menedemus, 3.
When Zeno was asked what a friend was, he replied, "Another I."
Diogenes Laërtius— Zeno, 19.
He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin.
Diogenes Laërtius— Pythagoras, 6.
In the time of Pythagoras that proverbial phrase Ipse dixit was introduced into ordinary life.
Diogenes Laërtius— Pythagoras, 25.
If appearances are deceitful, then they do not deserve any confidence when they assert what appears to them to be true.
Diogenes Laërtius— Pyrrho, 11.
He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin.
Diogenes Laërtius— Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, Pythagoras, VI.
Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said: "To know one's self."
Diogenes Laërtius— Diogenes Laertius, Thales, IX. Cited in: Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 419-23.
