“If he gets no other good, at all events, when he is at the theatre, he will not be one stone sitting upon another.” Once when some one brought his son to introduce to him, he demanded five hundred drachmas; and when the father said, “Why, for such a price as that I can buy a slave.” “Buy him then,” he replied, “and you will have a pair.”
It was a saying of his that he took money from his acquaintances not in order to use it himself, but to make them aware in what they ought to spend their money. On one occasion, being reproached for having employed a hired advocate in a cause that he had depending: “Why not,” said he; “when I have a dinner, I hire a cook.” Once he was compelled by Dionysius to repeat some philosophical sentiment; “It is an absurdity,” said he, “for you to learn of me how to speak, and yet to teach me when I ought to speak:” and as Dionysius was offended at this, he placed him at the lowest end of the table; on which Aristippus said, “You wish to make this place more respectable.” A man was one day boasting of his skill as a diver; “Are you not ashamed,” said Aristippus, “to pride yourself on your performance of the duty of a dolphin?” On one occasion he was asked in what respect a wise man is superior to one who is not wise; and his answer was, “Send them both naked among strangers, and you will find out.” A man was boasting of being able to drink a great deal without being drunk; and he said, “A mule can do the very same thing.” When a man reproached him for living with a mistress, he said, “Does it make any difference whether one takes a house in which many others have lived before one, or one where