Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Vol. 2 (Loeb)

Once, when taunted because he was not born of two free parents, he replied, "Neither was I born of two wrestlers, yet I am a wrestler." When asked why he had few students, he said, "Because I drive them away with a silver staff." Likely referring to the strict discipline of his teachings. Asked why he corrected his students so harshly, he said, "So do doctors to the sick." Seeing an adulterer running away, he said, "Poor man, you risked so much danger to save a single obol!" He used to say, as Hecaton relates in his Sayings, that it is better to fall among crows than flatterers, for the crows eat the dead, but the flatterers eat the living.

5 Asked what is the most blessed thing among humans, he said, "To die in a state of good fortune." When an acquaintance was lamenting that he had lost his notes, Antisthenes said, "You should have written them in your soul rather than on paper." He said that just as rust consumes iron, envious people are consumed by their own character. He said that those who wish to be immortal must live piously and justly. He said that cities perish when they can no longer distinguish the worthless from the virtuous. Once, when praised by wicked men, he said, "I worry that I have done something wrong."

6 He said that the life of brothers who live in harmony is stronger than any wall. He said one should acquire such supplies as will swim along with you even if you suffer a shipwreck. A famous metaphor for inner virtues that cannot be lost in external disasters. When taunted for associating with wicked people, he said, "Physicians are with the sick, yet they do not catch the fever."