Sayings and Anecdotes (Oxford World´s Classics New Edition)

Key features

• The only selection of the sayings and anecdotes of Diogenes, the ancient Greek philosopher whose biting wit and bizarre behaviour has passed down to the present day in European literature and art.
• Offers a comprehensive survey of Diogenes' moral philosophy in the form of pithy maxims and entertaining stories, together with his immediate followers, including Crates, and other early philosophers in the Cynic, Stoic, and Cyrenaic schools, and a lively selection from the apocryphal correspondence of the Cynics and Socratics.
• The first source-book in English for Diogenes and the early Cynics, bringing together material from a variety of different original sources.
• Attractive, colloquial translation emphasizes the accessible nature of the material.
• Introduction explains the significance of the anecdotal material in relation to the moral teaching of each school, and looks at the stories that have come down to us about Diogenes' famously ascetic life, such as living in a storage-jar. Explanatory Notes identify people and places, and explain literary and cultural allusions.
• Includes indexes of names and themes.

About this book

A unique edition of the sayings of Diogenes, whose biting wit and eccentricity inspired the anecdotes that express his Cynic philosophy. It includes the accounts of his immediate successors, such as Crates and Hipparchia, and the witty moral preacher Bion. The contrasting teachings of the Cyrenaics and the hedonistic Aristippos complete the volume.

Readership

Readers and students of ancient philosophy, sayings and anecdotes, students of Hellenistic philosophy, Stoicism and the Cynics, literature, history of philosophy.