Diogenes Dombey and Son is called Diogenes. Alexander's meeting with Diogenes is portrayed in Valerio Manfredi's "(Alexander Trilogy) "The Ends of the Earth"". William S. Burroughs has been described as "Diogenes with a knife and gun." The many allusions to dogs in Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens" are references to the school of Cynicism that could be interpreted as suggesting a parallel between the misanthropic hermit, Timon, and Diogenes; but Shakespeare would have had access to Michel de Montaigne's essay, "Of Democritus and Heraclitus", which emphasised their differences: Timon actively wishes men ill and shuns them as dangerous, whereas Diogenes esteems them
Diogenes was called a dog he replied, "I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals." Diogenes believed human beings live artificially and hypocritically and would do well to study the dog. Besides performing natural body functions in public with ease, a dog will eat anything, and make no fuss about where to sleep. Dogs live in the present without anxiety, and have no use for the pretensions of abstract philosophy. In addition to these virtues, dogs are thought to know instinctively who is friend and who is foe.