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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    One Monimus there was, a wise man, Philo,
  1. But not so very famous.
  2. A. He, you mean,
  3. Who carried the scrip?
  4. B. Nay, not one scrip, but three.
  5. Yet never a word, so help me Zeus, spake he
  6. To match the saying, Know thyself, nor such
  7. Famed watchwords. Far beyond all these he went,
  8. Your dusty mendicant, pronouncing wholly vain
  9. All man’s supposings.
Monimus indeed showed himself a very grave moralist, so that he ever despised mere opinion and sought only truth.

He has left us, besides some trifles blended with covert earnestness, two books, On Impulses and an Exhortation to Philosophy.