Vitae philosophorum
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.
He came to be a distinguished man; so much so that he is even mentioned by the comic poet Menander. At any rate in one of his plays, The Groom, his words are:
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Monimus indeed showed himself a very grave moralist, so that he ever despised mere opinion and sought only truth.One Monimus there was, a wise man, Philo,
- But not so very famous.
- A. He, you mean,
- Who carried the scrip?
- B. Nay, not one scrip, but three.
- Yet never a word, so help me Zeus, spake he
- To match the saying, Know thyself, nor such
- Famed watchwords. Far beyond all these he went,
- Your dusty mendicant, pronouncing wholly vain
- All man’s supposings.
He has left us, besides some trifles blended with covert earnestness, two books, On Impulses and an Exhortation to Philosophy.