Being asked what was the most beautiful thing in the world, he replied, "Freedom of speech."This is fragment 473 of Diogenes the Cynic in Gabriele Giannantoni, ed., Socraticorum Reliquiae, Vol. II (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1983), p. 585.
ἐρωτηθεὶς τί κάλλιστον ἐν ἀνθρώποις, ἔφη, "παρρησία."
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Thursday, January 16, 2025
The Fairest Thing
Diogenes Laertius 6.2.69 (on Diogenes the Cynic; tr. R.D. Hicks):