Tao Te Ching
Diogenes of Oenoanda Διογένης ὁ Οἰνοανδεύς
77 – 142 CE
Great Preserver of Epicureanism
Not much is known about Diogenes' life other than that he had a summary of Epicurus' philosophy carved onto a 2.37 x 80 meter wall. Originally taking up 260 square meters of wall space and including c. 25,000 words, now only about a third of it remains. That was enough though however to preserve a good sense of Epicurus' teaching on ethics, physics, and other fields. A close disciple, Diogenes felt that these teachings helped him immensely and he wanted to assure their survival and the ease for as many as possible to read them.
Lineages
Epicureanism Greek
Eras
Chinese
Eastern Han 漢朝 (25 – 220 CE)Unlisted Sources
Wall Fragment 54
Quotes by Diogenes of Oenoanda (5 quotes)
“Not least for those who are called foreigners, for they are not foreigners. For, while the various segments of the Earth give different people a different country, the whole compass of this world gives all people a single country, the entire Earth, and a single home, the world.”
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“the majority of people suffer from a common disease, as in a plague, with their false notions about things, and their number is increasing (for in mutual emulation they catch the disease from one another, like sheep)”
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“I wished to use this stoa to advertise publicly the medicines that bring salvation. These medicines we have put fully to the test; for we have dispelled the fears that grip us without justification, and, as for pains, those that are groundless we have completely excised, while those that are natural we have reduced to an absolute minimum, making their magnitude minute.”
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“Having already reached the sunset of my life (being almost on the verge of departure from the world on account of old age), I wanted, before being overtaken by death, to compose a fine anthem to celebrate the fullness of happiness and so to help now those who are well-constituted. It is right to help also generations to come (for they too belong to us, though they are still unborn)”
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“For if anyone follows Democritus' theory, saying that the atoms have no free motion, since they collide with one another, from which it appears that the motion of everything is necessitated, we shall say to him 'Do you not know, whoever you are, that the atoms have a free motion, which Democritus did not discover, but Epicurus revealed, namely the motion of the swerve, as he shows from the phenomena?”
from Wall Fragment 54
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