Aristippus Quotes

Diogenes, in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of Aristippus. The cynic pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the civilisation of the time. He was the nihilist of Hellenism. He created nothing, he made nothing. His role was to undo - or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role? ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Pythagoras apparently wrote nothing, and yet his influence was so great that the more attentive of his followers formed a secretive society, or brotherhood, and were known as the Pythagoreans.

Aristippus of Cyrene tells us in his Account of Natural Philosphers that Pythagoras derived his name from the fact that he was speaking (agoreuein) truth like the God at Delphi (tou Pythiou). ~ Mario Livio

The best thing is to possess pleasures without being their slave; not to be devoid of pleasures. ~ Aristippus

Aristippus said: That those that studied particular sciences, and neglected philosophy, were like Penelope's wooers, that made love to the waiting women. ~ Francis Bacon

You can best reward a liar by believing nothing of what he says. ~ Aristippus

It is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without being worsted. ~ Aristippus

If extravagance were a fault, it would not have a place in the festivals of the gods. ~ Aristippus

The art of life lies in taking pleasures as they pass, and the keenest pleasures are not intellectual, nor are they always moral. ~ Aristippus

The vice lies not in entering the bordello but in not coming out. ~ Aristippus

The refractory pupil of Socrates, Aristippus the Cyrene, who believed happiness to be the sum of particular pleasures and golden moments and not, as Epicurus, a prolonged intermediary state between ecstasy and pain. ~ Cyril Connolly