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Who is he? One of the lesser known philosophers. A homeless beggar, and rival of Plato. Here's a bit of his work:

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"Why is it, Diogenes, that pupils leave you to go to other teachers, but rarely do they leave them to come to you?"
"Because," replied Diogenes, "one can make eunuchs out of men, but no one can make a man out of eunuchs".
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In winter Diogenes walked barefoot in the snow. In summer he rolled in the hot sand. He did this to harden himself against discomfort.
"But aren't you overdoing it a little?" a disciple asked.
"Of course," replied Diogenes, "I am like a teacher of choruses who has to sing louder than the rest in order they may get the right note."
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A student of philosophy, eager to display his powers of argument, approached Diogenes, introduced himself and said, "If it pleases you, sir, let me prove to you that there is no such thing as motion." Whereupon Diogenes immediately got up, and left.
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A disciple asked Diogenes, "What is the main reason for wearing a cynics robe and the begging bowl?"
"So as not to deceive oneself."
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When someone once asked Diogenes why he often laughed by himself, he said, "For that very reason."
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Plato considered Diogenes' stray-dog behavior unbecoming to one calling himself a philosopher. "You really do live up to your name" he said to him disapprovingly one day. "By the Gods, you are right for once Plato," replied Diogenes, and then baring his teeth, he added, "But at least I've sunk my teeth into philosophy."
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Plato was discoursing on his theory of ideas and, pointing to the cups on the table before him, said while there are many cups in the world, there is only one `idea' of a cup, and this cupness precedes the existence of all particular cups.
"I can see the cup on the table," interrupted Diogenes, "but I can't see the `cupness'".
"That's because you have the eyes to see the cup," said Plato, "but", tapping his head with his forefinger, "you don't have the intellect with which to comprehend `cupness'."
Diogenes walked up to the table, examined a cup and, looking inside, and asked, "Is it empty?"
Plato nodded.
"Where is the `emptiness' which precedes this empty cup?" asked Diogenes.
Plato allowed himself a few moments to collect his thoughts, but Diogenes reached over and, tapping Plato's head with his finger, said "I think you will find here is the `emptiness'."
***
Diogenes was knee deep in a stream washing vegetables. Coming up to him, Plato said, "My good Diogenes, if you knew how to pay court to kings, you wouldn't have to wash vegetables."
"And," replied Diogenes, "if you knew how to wash vegetables, you wouldn't have to pay court to kings."
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Diogenes was once asked what he thought of Socrates. "A madman," he replied.
Later, Plato was asked what he thought of Diogenes. "A Socrates gone mad," he replied.
Diogenes ridiculed Plato for being long-winded.
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Some strangers to Athens once asked Diogenes if he would point out to them the great philosopher [meaning Plato]. Diogenes looked around and then led them to the most deserted part of the city and, gesturing to the empty air as one would in formal introduction, said, "May I present to you the great philosopher Plato."
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Diogenes was once invited to dinner by a wealthy man. During the evening, one of the guests became so outraged by Diogenes' general behavior that he began to throw bones at him, calling him a "dog." Whereupon Diogenes got up, went to the guest, cocked up his leg and urinated on him.
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Often when he was begging, Diogenes would be spat on by the people who passed him. Diogenes would ignore this and simply wipe his face with his sleeve. When ridiculed for his passive behavior, Diogenes said, "Since men endure being wetted by the sea in order to net a mere herring, should I not endure being sprinkled to net my dinner?"
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Diogenes stood outside a brothel, shouting, "A beautiful whore is like poisoned honey! A beautiful whore is like poisoned honey! A beautiful whore . . . “Men entering the house threw him a coin or two to shut him up. Eventually Diogenes had collected enough money and he too went into the brothel.
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Diogenes was asked why he always begged. "To teach people," replied Diogenes. "Oh yes, and what do you teach?" people would ask him scornfully. "Generosity", he replied.
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Diogenes was once asked why he took money from people. "To show them how they ought to spend their money," he replied.
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Diogenes was asked, "Tell me; to what do you attribute your great poverty?"
"Hard work," he replied.
"And what advice can you offer the rich?"
"Avoid all the good things in life."
"Why?"
"Because money costs too much. A rich man is far poorer than a poor man."
"How can that be?"
"Because poverty is the only thing money can't buy."
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Whenever people complimented Diogenes, he would slap himself hard across the face and in self-reproach would cry, "Shame! I must have done something terribly wicked!"
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A famous athlete was making his triumphal entry into the city after another successful games. As he was carried along, he was unable to tear his eyes away from the many beautiful women among the onlookers.
"Look at our brave victor," remarked Diogenes, "taken captive by every girl he sees."
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On one bright, clear day, Diogenes was walking up and down the market place, holding a lighted lantern high in front of him and peering around as if searching for something. When people gaped and asked him what he was doing, he replied, "I am looking for an honest man."
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"It's my fate to steal," pleaded the man who had been caught red-handed by Diogenes.
"Then it is also your fate to be beaten," said Diogenes, hitting him across the head with his staff.
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Diogenes was strolling through the market place. Suddenly, he called out in despair, "Men! Men! Men! . . . "
Immediately, they came running from all directions: young fops with flowers in their hair; lusty young boys, scantily dressed, hanging off the arms of older men; freemen, their slaves beside them burdened down with groceries, their cheeks bulging with small change; merchants who had left their shops in answer to Diogenes' call.
He looked at them searchingly one by one and with a sad shrug turned to walk away. "I called for men," he said in disgust.
***
The city was under siege. Everyone was busy fortifying the walls - some were carrying stones, others were patching the walls, yet others were building battlements. Diogenes, not wanting to appear idle while everyone around him was working so frantically, diligently rolled his barrel back and forth along the battlements. The city fell.
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In the midst of serious discourse in the Craneum, Diogenes realized no one was listening. So he instead began to whistle and dance about to attract attention. Immediately, people flocked round him. Diogenes stopped and said, "You idiots, you are not interested to stop and pay attention to wisdom, yet you rush up to observe a foolish display."
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A heckler in the crowd shouted out, "My mind is not made like that; I can't be bothered with philosophy."
"Why do you bother to live," Diogenes retorted, "if you can't be bothered to live properly?"
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Very few of Diogenes' disciples had the physical and mental stamina to become cynics. One in particular left the circle, but not before entreating Diogenes to give him one of his books. "You really are a silly fellow," said Diogenes. "Surely you wouldn't have painted figs instead of real ones. And yet you pass over the genuine practice of wisdom and would be satisfied with what is merely written."
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Someone once asked, "Tell me Diogenes, what does a wise man look like?" At once, Diogenes straightened himself up and stroked his beard.
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Diogenes was gathering figs and had just filled his bag when a stranger came along the road. "I wouldn't touch this fruit! A man hung himself from the tree just the other day," warned the man, obviously believing the tree to be cursed.
By way of answer, Diogenes sank his teeth into the fig he was holding. Sucking, as one would suck venom from a wound, he proclaimed, "Thus I purify the tree."
Agog, the man stood there marveling while Diogenes walked off.
***
Passing a stream, Diogenes saw a boy drinking out of his hands. "A child has beaten me in simplicity," he said, throwing away his cup.
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A young man contemplating marriage sought advice from Diogenes. "Should I marry?"
"Marriage is too soon for a young man"
"Would you have me wait then until I am old?"
"Oh no, Marriage is far too late for an old man."
"What am I to do then? I love the girl."
"Love is a luxury no one can afford. It is for those who have nothing better to do."
"What should we be doing then?"
"To seek freedom. But it is not possible to be free if you have a wife and children."
"But having a wife and family is so agreeable."
"Then you see the problem, young man. Freedom would not be so difficult to attain were prison not so sweet."
"You mean to be free is to be alone?"
"We come into the world alone and we die alone. Why, in life, should we be any less alone?"
"To live, then, is terrible."
"No, not to live, but to live in chains."
***
Asked about his worst nightmare, Diogenes said, "Waking to find myself living in a palace and everyone else in barrels."
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Once Diogenes was going into the theatre just as everybody was coming out. When asked why he did this, he answered, "Opposition has been my manner. It is what I have been doing all my life."
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Diogenes was walking backwards across the Agora, affecting a studied indifference to all who laughed at him. Finally, when he had collected a large following he stopped and announced, "You are laughing at me walking just a little distance backwards while you all lead your entire lives arse-about."
"And what's more," he asked, "can you change your way of living as easily as this?" Whereupon, he turned on his heel and walked off in normal fashion.
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Diogenes was asked, "What is the difference between life and death?
"No difference."
"Well then, why do you remain in this life?"
"Because there is no difference."
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Once, when watching an incompetent bowman at an archery contest, Diogenes walked over and sat down right next to the target, explaining that it was the only place where he felt safe.
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When Diogenes noticed a prostitute's son throwing rocks at crowd, Diogenes said to him "Careful, son. Don't hit your father."
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One day Diogenes shouted out for men, and when people collected, hit out at them with his stick, saying, "It was men I called for, not scoundrels."
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Diogenes was particularly upset by extravagant and lavish interior decorations, and at one rich man's house, on finding himself surrounded by expensive carpets and sumptuous cushions, Diogenes spat in the owner's face, and then wiped it with his rough cloak and apologized, saying it was the only dirty place in the room he could find to spit.
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After being banished from Sinope, Diogenes said, "The Sinopeans have condemned me to banishment; I condemn them to stay at home!"
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When Lysias the druggist asked him if he believed in the gods," How can I help believing in them," said he, "when I see a god-forsaken wretch like you?"
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He was asking alms of a bad-tempered man, who said, "Yes, if you can persuade me." "If I could have persuaded you," said Diogenes, "I would have persuaded you to hang yourself."
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When some strangers expressed a wish to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger and said, "There goes the demagogue of Athens."
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At a feast certain people kept throwing all the bones to Diogenes as they would to a dog. He played a dog's trick and urinated on them.

Diogenes Said:

"Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?"
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When asked what wine he found most pleasant to drink, Diogenes replied, "That for which other people pay."
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Diogenes was great at pouring scorn on his contemporaries. The school of Euclides he called bilious, and Plato's lectures a waste of time, the performances at the Dionysia great peep-shows for fools, and the demagogues the mob's lackeys. He used to also say that when he saw physicians, philosophers and pilots at their work, he deemed man the most intelligent of all animals; but when again he saw interpreters of dreams and diviners and those who attended to them, or those who were puffed up with conceit of wealth, he thought no animal more silly. He would continually say that for the conduct of life we need right reason or a halter.
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Regardless of his cynicism, Diogenes was loved by the Athenians. At all events, when a youngster broke up his tub, they gave the boy a flogging and presented Diogenes with another.
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Diogenes said that there was one only good, namely, knowledge; and one only evil, namely, ignorance.
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Being asked whether death was an evil thing, Diogenes replied, "How can it be evil, when in its presence we are not aware of it?"
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When someone declared that life is an evil, Diogenes said, "Not life itself, but living ill."
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Diogenes was asked, "Why do people give to beggars but not to philosophers? ""Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy," Diogenes replied.
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Being asked what creature's bite is the worst, he said, "Of those that are wild, a sycophant's; of those that are tame, a flatterer's".
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When asked from where he came, Diogenes said, "I am a citizen of the world."
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To a young man who complained that he was ill suited to study philosophy, Diogenes said, "Why then do you live, if you do not care to live well?"
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When asked what was the proper time for supper, Diogenes replied, "If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can."
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A student asked to borrow a book, he replied: "You are a silly man. If you wanted figs you wouldn't be satisfied with painted ones. But you take no notice of the practice of virtue and study only those who write about it".
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Friends of Diogenes wanted to ransom him, where upon he called them simpletons; "for", said he, "lions are not the slaves of those who feed them, but rather those who feed them are at the mercy of the lions: for fear is the mark of the slave, whereas wild beasts make men afraid of them."
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When asked what was the right age for marriage, Diogenes replied: "For a young man, not yet; for an old man, not at all."
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When asked how he would like to be buried, Diogenes replied 'face downwards', when asked why, he explained that the Macedonians were rising in power so rapidly that the world would shortly be turned upside down and he would then be the right way up.
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Diogenes was breakfasting in the market place, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of "dog." "It is you who are dogs," said Diogenes, "when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast."
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Some one wanted to study philosophy under him. Diogenes gave him a tuna fish to carry and told him to follow him. And when for shame the man threw it away and departed, some time after on meeting him he laughed and said, "The friendship between you and me was broken by a tuna."
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When someone boasted that at the Pythian Games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, "Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves."
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As he was leaving the public baths, somebody inquired if many men were bathing. He said, "No." But to another who asked if there was a great crowd of bathers, he said, "Yes."
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The question was put to Diogenes, what hope is; and his answer was, "The dream of a waking man."
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Chided as an old man who ought to rest, he replied, "What, if I were running in the stadium, ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal? Ought I not rather put on speed?"
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Diogenes often used the phrase "paracharatein to nomisma," meaning 'altering the currency'. What he was told to do by the oracle at Delphi.
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To a man whose shoes were being put on by his servant, Diogenes said, "You have not attained to full felicity, unless he wipes your nose as well; and that will come, when you have lost the use of your hands."
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When breakfasting on olives amongst which a cake had been inserted, he flung it away and addressed it thus: "Stranger, be gone from the princes' path."
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After being reproached for masturbating in the marketplace he would say "If only it was as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly as it is to masturbate."
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Dio Chrysostom described Diogenes as terminating a discourse by squatting down and evacuating his bowels in the presence of his hearers.
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After being captured by pirates, Diogenes was asked what he can do and he replied "I can govern men; therefore sell me to one who wants a master." Then as a slave, Diogenes said, "You must obey me, although I am a slave; for, if a physician or a steersman were in slavery, he would be obeyed."
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Being reproached for eating in the market-place "Well, it was in the market-place," Diogenes said, "that I felt hungry."
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When some one said, "Most people laugh at you," his reply was, "And so very likely do the asses at them; but as they don't care for the asses, so neither do I care for them."
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Seeing a youth dressing with elaborate care, Diogenes said, "If it's for men, you're a fool; if for women, a knave."
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Diogenes was also famous for walking through the streets of Athens in broad daylight waving a lantern and announcing that he was looking for an "honest man".
He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, "I am looking for a man."
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Of the golden statue of Phryne at Delphi, Diogenes was said to have written upon it: "From the licentiousness of Greece."
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"I am Alexander the Great," said the monarch to Diogenes. "And I am Diogenes the Cynic," replied Diogenes
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Alexander stood opposite Diogenes and asked, "Are you not afraid of me?" "Why, what are you," said Diogenes, "a good thing or a bad?" Alexander replied, "A good thing" whereupon Diogenes said, "Who, then, is afraid of the good?"
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Diogenes asked Alexander what his plans were. Alexander answered that he planned to conquer and subjugate Greece. Then what? Diogenes asked. Alexander said that he planned to conquer and subjugate Asia Minor. And then? Alexander said that he planned to conquer and subjugate the world.
Diogenes, who was not easily dissuaded from a line of inquiry, posed the question again: What next? Alexander the Great told Diogenes that after all that conquering and subjugating, he planned to relax and enjoy himself. Diogenes responded: Why not save yourself a lot of trouble by relaxing and enjoying yourself now?
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Once, while Diogenes was sunning himself, Alexander the Great came up to him and offered to grant him any request. Diogenes told him to "Stand less between the sun and me."
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Alexander the Great said:
"If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes."
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When someone was extolling the good fortune and splendor another had experienced in sharing the suite of Alexander the Great, Diogenes said, "Not so, but rather ill fortune -- for he breakfasts and dines when Alexander thinks fit."
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Plato once said to Diogenes "If you had paid your respects to Dionysus, you would not be washing lettuces now," to which, with equal calmness Diogenes replied, "If you had washed lettuces, Plato, you would not have had to pay your respects to Dionysus."
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Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, "Here is Plato's man."
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When Diogenes was invited to dine at Plato's house, he preceded to trample over all the embroidered cushions with his muddy feet. "Thus I trample on the pride of Plato", Diogenes cried. "With the pride of Diogenes", replied Plato.
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When Plato styled him a dog," Quite true," he said, "for I come back again and again to those who have sold me."
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Again, another time he was eating dried figs when he encountered Plato and offered him a share of them. When Plato took them and ate them, he said, “I said you might share them, not that you might eat them all up."
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As Plato was conversing about Ideas and using the nouns "tablehood" and "cuphood," Diogenes said, "Table and cup I see; but your tablehood and cuphood, Plato, I can nowise see." "That's readily accounted for," said Plato, "For you have the eyes to see the visible table and cup; but not the understanding by which ideal tablehood and cuphood are discerned."
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A philosopher named Aristippus, who had quite willingly sucked up to Dionysus and won himself a spot at his court, saw Diogenes cooking lentils for a meal. "If you would only learn to compliment Dionysus, you wouldn't have to live on lentils."
Diogenes replied, "But if you would only learn to live on lentils, you wouldn't have to flatter Dionysus."
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When Craterus wanted him to come and visit him, “No," he replied, “I would rather live on a few grains of salt at Athens than enjoy sumptuous fare at Craterus's table."
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He was seized and dragged off to Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, “A spy upon your insatiable greed." For this he was admired and set free.
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"Aristotle has to dine when Philip thinks fit; Diogenes can dine at any time he chooses"
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"Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards."
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"He has the most who is most content with the least."
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"All things are the property of the wise."
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"Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?"
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"When two friends part they should lock up each other's secrets and exchange keys. The truly noble mind has no resentments."
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"Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves. Whistle and dance the shimmy, and you've got an audience."
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"Things of value are battered for things that are worthless and vice-versa."
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"As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task."
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"Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad."
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"Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a
harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music."
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"The foundation of every state is the education of its youth."
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"A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire; not too near, lest he burn; not too far off, lest he freeze."
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"All things are in common among friends."
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"It is better to have one friend of great value than many friends who were good for
nothing."
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"It takes a wise man to discover a wise man."
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"Man is the most intelligent of the animals -- and the most silly."
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"What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others."
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"Blushing is the color of virtue."
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"I do not know whether there are gods, but there ought to be."
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"I am Diogenes the Cynic, called a dog because I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals."
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"All things belong to the gods. The wise are friends of the gods, and friends hold things in common. Therefore all things belong to the wise.”
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Seeing a child drinking from his hands, Diogenes threw away his cup and remarked, "A child has beaten me in plainness of living."