Ten Reasons Why Diogenes of Sinope Was the Coolest Philosopher

1. He strolled about in full daylight with a lamp looking for an honest man, finding none.
2. He publicly mocked Alexander the Great and lived. When asked if there was any favor he might do for him, Diogenes replied, "Yes, stand out of my sunlight."
3. He intellectually embarrassed Plato. When Plato gave Socrates' definition of Man as "featherless bipeds", Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying, "Behold! I've brought you a man."
4. After defacing the fiscal currency (coins) in his native city, he moved to Athens to deface the cultural currency.
5. He destroyed the single wooden bowl he possessed on seeing a peasant boy drink from the hollow of his hands.
6. He ate in the marketplace (a no-no), urinated on some people who insulted him, defecated in the theater, masturbated in public and pointed at people with his middle finger.
7. He lived and slept in a tub he plopped down in the marketplace which he had filched from a temple.
8. He was captured by pirates and when sold as a slave, he said he wished to be sold to a man who needed a master.
9. When asked how he wished to be buried, he left instructions to be thrown outside the city wall so wild animals could feast on his body.
10. He was probably the truest of ascetics and a founder of Cynicism.