Diogenes Quotes

You have seen in football that if you start to think you are the 'Special One,' or that you are better than the others, that is the moment when you will be beaten.

When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and saying, 'I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,' Epictetus replied, 'I too have conversed with many rich men, yet I am not rich!’.

Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty.

Well I don't want to talk about myself, that's so rude and egotistical.

Any time you talk about your own stuff you sound self-aggrandising.

When I did the film 'Hear My Voice' a few years ago, I disappeared fully up my own backside for a while. Because I thought my career was taking off, I became a bit of an egomaniac and a pain in the neck. I thought I was God's gift to mankind and the greatest Irishman since George Best.

I look upon another's insistence on the merits of his or her life - duties, intellect, accomplishment - and see that most of it is nonsense.

If people have to tell you how successful they are, they really aren't that successful.

If you are the greatest, why would you go around talking about it?

We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.

I'm kinda not one of those people that likes to put up trophies in my house, because I don't want my mom to come be like, 'Hey, you're full of yourself.'

I never wanted to be 'the big I-Am.'

The real champions in life are so humble and gracious. They just continue doing what they do without all the posturing. If you've got the real thing, you don't have to flaunt a loud imitation.

Pride, like humility, is destroyed by one's insistence that he possesses it.

Pride sings and dances; humility sighs.

True greatness is sovereign wisdom. We are never deceived by our virtues.

It is no great thing to be humble when you are brought low; but to be humble when you are praised is a great and rare attainment.

The only way to cure an egotist from bragging is by surgery--amputation at the neck.

I learned that you've never made it, you've never arrived, you're never too good, you're never above anybody else.

Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

When you start thinking you're a big shot, you wash more feet.

Being humble is cooler than being famous.

No true hero ever believes that they are one.

Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.

Why would I ever get cocky? I'm not saving anybody's life.