Lesson · 4 min Gentle
Citizen of the World
In one line Name a harm or admit you have only named a difference.
Asked where he came from, Diogenes said he was a citizen of the world. A city, an accent, and a passport are local. A person is not the costume of one place.
This is not a claim that every custom is a harm, or that no custom can be learned. A greeting can be local and still be worth learning. The test is whether you have named a harm, or only named a difference.
Ask one question when you are about to set someone aside. Is the reason a damage, or is it that they are not from here? If you have only the second, you have not yet given a reason.
Not from here
A villager sets a proposal aside because the author “isn’t from here.” No one has said what the proposal does. The origin is being asked to stand in for an argument.
Diogenes would send the room back to the proposal. The map can wait. The reason cannot.
Try this today Before you set an idea aside because of where it came from, state the actual harm.
Cite or share this lesson
A plain reference you can paste into notes or an essay:
Quest2Reason. “Citizen of the World.” https://quest2reason.com/learn/lesson/citizen-of-the-world. Accessed 13 November 2026.
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Cynicism (philosophy)” — Overview of the Cynics, including Diogenes.
- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 6.63 — Asked where he came from, Diogenes said he was a citizen of the world. Public-domain translations include C. D. Yonge.
- Diogenes Laertius, Book 6 — The Cynic habit of holding local custom up against nature and asking what it is really worth.