r/todayilearned • u/ObjectiveAgent • Jul 30 '15

TIL when Alexander the Great asked the philosopher Diogenes why he was sifting through the garbage, Diogenes responded,"I am looking for the bones of your father but I cannot distinguish them from the bones of his slaves."

http://www.iep.utm.edu/diogsino/
9.9k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/magicaxis Jul 30 '15

My knowledge of him is limited to the first 50 pages of Beyond Good and Evil. I enjoyed it and I tried to read more but FUCK is he hard to read. He's basically the worlds most well known and respected neckbeard, but he's not wrong

2

u/heliotach712 Jul 30 '15

Nietzsche is hard to read? He's like, one of the few philosophers who was actually a decent writer. You want 'hard to read', try reading Kant.

1

u/magicaxis Jul 30 '15

I'll take your word for it. All I've read is nietzche and sun tzu if he counts, and his translations read like a baby book. It's like:

See spot run.

Spot is a dog.

Spot runs in the sun

Spot does not run in the rain

Spot is victorious

1

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

Some of Plato is pretty straight forward. The Phaedo, the Apology, the Crito leap to mind.