Socrates of Byzantium Quotes

Once he saw the officials of a temple leading away some one who had stolen a bowl belonging to the treasurers, and said, "The great thieves are leading away the little thief.

Virtue cannot dwell with wealth either in a city or in a house.

O man competing with the dog, you know not God, and so have turned to the imitation of an irrational animal.

When people laughed at him because he walked backward beneath the portico, he said to them: "Aren't you ashamed, you who walk backward along the whole path of existence, and blame me for walking backward along the path of the promenade?

When the slave auctioneer asked in what he was proficient, he replied, "In ruling people.

Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself.

Perdiccas threatened to put him to death unless he came to him, "That's nothing wonderful," Diogenes said, "for a beetle or a tarantula would do the same.

No labor, according to Diogenes, is good but that which aims at producing courage and strength of soul rather than of body.

To Xeniades, who had purchased Diogenes at the slave market, he said, "Come, see that you obey orders.

If you are to be kept right, you must possess either good friends or red-hot enemies. The one will warn you, the other will expose you.

To one who asked what was the proper time for lunch, he said, "If a rich man, when you will; if a poor man, when you can.

A Socrates gone mad.

He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, "I am looking for a human.