The first nine probably date from the 3rd century BC, they are usually included among the Cynic epistles, and reflect how the Cynic philosophers viewed him as prefiguring many of their ideas ; the tenth letter is quoted by Diogenes Laertius, it is addressed to Croesus, the proverbially rich king of Lydia, it too is fictitious:

:" He marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skillful in a thing vie in competition ; those who have no skill, judge " — Diogenes Laertius, of Anacharsis.

v. 32 ; Diogenes Laertius i. 101-5 ; Athenaeus, iv.

According to Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch he fled to Lampsacus due to a backlash against his pupil Pericles.

Diogenes Laertius reports the story that he was prosecuted by Cleon for impiety, but Plutarch says that Pericles sent his former tutor, Anaxagoras, to Lampsacus for his own safety after the Athenians began to blame him for the Peloponnesian war.

According to Diogenes Laertius, in response to Alexander's claim to have been the son of Zeus-Ammon, Anaxarchus pointed to his bleeding wound and remarked, " See the blood of a mortal, not ichor, such as flows from the veins of the immortal gods.

" Diogenes Laertius also says that Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus, commanded him to be pounded to death in a mortar, and that he endured this torture with fortitude and Cicero relates the same story.

The only surviving complete works by Epicurus are three letters, which are to be found in book X of Diogenes Laertius ' Lives of Eminent Philosophers, and two groups of quotes: the Principal Doctrines, reported as well in Diogenes ' book X, and the Vatican Sayings, preserved in a manuscript from the Vatican Library.

Epicurus ' cheerful demeanor, as he continued to work despite dying from a painful stone blockage of his urinary tract lasting a fortnight, according to his successor Hermarchus and reported by his biographer Diogenes Laertius, further enhanced his status among his followers.

( Diogenes Laertius quoting Cleanthes ; quoted also by Seneca, Epistle 107.

Diogenes Laertius states that Xenophon was sometimes known as the " Attic Muse " for the sweetness of his diction ; very few poets wrote in the Attic dialect.

Diogenes Laertius, a fourth source for information about Zeno and his teachings, citing Favorinus, says that Zeno's teacher Parmenides was the first to introduce the Achilles and the Tortoise Argument.

By the 16th century, the works of Diogenes Laertius were being printed in Europe.

Epicurus ' philosophy of the physical world is found in his Letter to Herodotus: Diogenes Laertius 10. 34-83.

The subject of this type evidently refers to a story related by Diogenes Laertius that the Selinuntines were afflicted with a pestilence from the marshy character of the lands adjoining the neighboring river, but that this was cured by works of drainage, suggested by Empedocles.

In comparison, Socrates accepted no fee, instead professed a self-effacing posture, which he exemplified by Socratic questioning ( i. e. the Socratic method, although Diogenes Laertius wrote that Protagoras — a sophist — invented the " Socratic " method ).

According to Diogenes Laertius, he had a brother named Dropidas and was an ancestor ( six generations removed ) of Plato.

The passage in which the above occurs has been described as " elaborately ironical ", making it unclear which of its aspects may be taken seriously, although Diogenes Laertius later confirms that there were indeed seven such individuals who were held in high esteem for their wisdom well before Plato's time.

Diogenes Laertius further states that Dicaearchus gave ten possible names, Hippobotus suggested twelve names, and Hermippus enumerated seventeen possible sages from which different people made different selections of seven.

Unlike with Aristotle, we have no complete works by the Megarians or the early Stoics, and have to rely mostly on accounts ( sometimes hostile ) by later sources, including prominently Diogenes Laertius, Sextus Empiricus, Galen, Aulus Gellius, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Cicero.

Diogenes Laertius says Pythagoras died in a fire in Milo's house, but Dicaearchus says Pythagoras died in the temple of the Muses at Metapontum of self-imposed starvation.

Diogenes Laertius, after quoting a famous epigram by Cleobulus ( one of ancient Greece's ' seven sages ') in which a maiden sculptured on a tomb is imagined to proclaim her eternal vigilance, quotes Simonides commenting on it in a poem of his own: Stone is broken even by mortal hands.

The biographical notices, the author avers, are condensed from the Onomatologion or Pinax of Hesychius of Miletus ; other sources were the excerpts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the chronicle of Georgius Monachus, the biographies of Diogenes Laertius and the works of Athenaeus and Philostratus.

Diogenes Laertius (;, Diogenēs Laertios ; fl.

Anaxarchus is said to have studied under Diogenes of Smyrna, who in turn studied under Metrodorus of Chios, who used to declare that he knew nothing, not even the fact that he knew nothing.

Mycroft is described as even more gifted than Sherlock in matters of observation and deduction, but he lacks Sherlock's drive and energy, preferring to spend his time at ease in the Diogenes Club, described as " a club for the most un-clubbable men in London ".

The last " Greek " philosophers of the revived Akademia in the 6th century were drawn from various parts of the Hellenistic cultural world and suggest the broad syncretism of the common culture ( see koine ): Five of the seven Akademia philosophers mentioned by Agathias were Syriac in their cultural origin: Hermias and Diogenes ( both from Phoenicia ), Isidorus of Gaza, Damascius of Syria, Iamblichus of Coele-Syria and perhaps even Simplicius of Cilicia.

In this, they are akin to Cynic philosophers such as Antisthenes and Diogenes in denying the importance to eudaimonia of external goods and circumstances, such as were recognized by Aristotle, who thought that severe misfortune ( such as the death of one ’ s family and friends ) could rob even the most virtuous person of eudaimonia.

No writings of Diogenes survived even though he is reported to have authored over ten books, a volume of letters and seven tragedies.

As to his death, Diogenes Laërtius reports a dubious story that Philolaus was put to death at Croton on account of being suspected of wanting to be the tyrant ; a story which Laërtius even took the trouble to put into verse.

She had also sworn on Constantine's deathbed not to marry again, and had even imprisoned and exiled Romanos Diogenes, who was suspected of aspiring to the throne.

According to Diogenes Laërtius, Timon was a one-eyed man ; and he used even to make a jest of his own defect, calling himself Cyclops.

The last " Greek " philosophers of the revived Academy in the 6th century were drawn from various parts of the Hellenistic cultural world and suggest the broad syncretism of the common culture ( see koine ): Five of the seven Academy philosophers mentioned by Agathias were Syriac in their cultural origin: Hermias and Diogenes ( both from Phoenicia ), Isidorus of Gaza, Damascius of Syria, Iamblichus of Coele-Syria and perhaps even Simplicius of Cilicia.

* In Nobuhiro Watsuki's manga series Embalming-The Another Tale of Frankenstein -, Asuhit Richter goes to the Diogenes Club in London to meet one of the club's founders and his client " Mike Roft ", a play on Mycroft, who is also a high-standing government official.

* In the BBC TV series Sherlock episode " The Reichenbach Fall ", the Diogenes Club is shown ; Watson goes there, desperate to see Mycroft Holmes, gets into trouble for talking, and is briskly and not too gently escorted to the Stranger's Room by two muffle-shoed bouncers who hold a cloth pad to his mouth to prevent further noise.

Diogenes relates that Sotion said he was a " hearer " of Xenophanes, which contradicts Heraclitus ' statement ( so says Diogenes ) that he had taught himself by questioning himself.

Timon of Phlius calls him " the riddler " ( ainiktēs ) according to Diogenes Laërtius, who had just explained that Heraclitus wrote his book " rather unclearly " ( asaphesteron ) so that only the " capable " should attempt it.

But for them, we should be without the most important fragments of the writings of the Eleatics, of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Diogenes of Apollonia, and others, which were at that time already very scarce, as well as without many extracts from the lost books of Aristotle, Theophrastus and Eudemus: but for them we should hardly be able to unriddle the doctrine of the Categories, so important for the system of the Stoics.

Diogenes responds, " Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say.

However, it was not always possible to find suitable quotations for every chapter, so many were simply invented by Dexter and attributed to non-existent sources, the most common of which was Diogenes Small.

On one occasion Diogenes went with his head half-shaved into an entertainment of young men, as Metrocles tells us in his Chreiai, and so was beaten by them.

In the 15th century, during the Italian Renaissance, the humanist monk Ambrogio Traversari translated Diogenes ’ s Greek book into Latin, as Laertii Diogenis vitae et sententiae eorum qui in philosophia probati fuerunt ( 1433 ), and so popularized De mortuis nihil nisi bonum, the Latin aphorism advising respect for the dead.