“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.”

“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?”

“Time is the most valuable thing that a man can spend.”

“When some one reminded him that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, he said, "And I sentenced them to stay at home.”

“I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.”

“One day a man invited him into a richly furnished house, saying 'be careful not to spit on the floor.' Diogenes, who needed to spit, spat in his face, exclaiming that it was the only dirty place he could find where spitting was permitted.”

“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.”