And he addressed a man who was buying delicacies at a great expense:—
When Plato was discoursing about his “ideas,” and using the nouns “tableness” and “cupness;” “I, O Plato!” interrupted Diogenes, “see a table and a cup, but I see no tableness or cupness.” Plato made answer, “That is natural enough, for you have eyes, by which a cup and a table are contemplated; but you have not intellect, by which tableness and cupness are seen.”
On one occasion, he was asked by a certain person, “What sort of a man, O Diogenes, do you think Socrates?” and he said, “A madman.” Another time, the question was put to him, when a man ought to marry? and his reply was, “Young men ought not to marry yet, and old men never ought to marry at all.” When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on the head? he replied, “A helmet.” Seeing a youth smartening himself up very carefully, he said to him, “If you are doing that for men, you are miserable; and if for women, you are profligate.” Once he saw a youth blushing, and addressed him, “Courage, my boy, that is the complexion of virtue.” Having once listened to two lawyers, he condemned them both; saying, “That the one had stolen the thing in question, and that the other had not lost it.” When asked what wine he liked to drink, he said, “That which belongs to another.”