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Sayings and anecdotes (chreiai) — Diogenes of Sinope

Later compilation · Essential works

Sayings and anecdotes (chreiai)

Χρεῖαι / Ἀποφθέγματα Διογένους

Mosaico de Diógenes (Colonia)
byDiogenes of Sinope

Hundreds of short replies and exemplary scenes that in effect make up Diogenes' surviving work: the lamp lit in broad daylight, the plucked fowl shown to Plato, the "stand out of my sun" said to Alexander, the cup thrown away on seeing a child drink, the sale into slavery, the "citizen of the world". The genre, the chreia, was a school exercise in rhetoric, which explains its polished form and its ease in migrating from one figure to another. Read together, they sketch a coherent ethic: self-sufficiency, training, frankness and mockery of convention.

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Authorship note

Not a work by Diogenes but the corpus of sayings and anecdotes tradition attributed to him. It took shape from the fourth century BCE—Metrocles, Hecato, Menippus, Eubulus and others compiled chreiai—and reaches us through Diogenes Laertius (VI 20–81), Plutarch, Stobaeus, the Gnomologium Vaticanum and other anthologies. Many anecdotes were also told of other philosophers; none can be taken as a literal transcript.

Editions and translations

Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.

English

  • Diogenes the Cynic: Sayings and Anecdotes, with Other Popular Moralists — Diogenes of Sinope

    Diogenes the Cynic: Sayings and Anecdotes, with Other Popular Moralists

    Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2012

    Translation: Robin Hard

    ISBN 9780199589241

    Reúne los dichos de Diógenes de Laercio y de otras fuentes antiguas.

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  • Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book VI

    Wikisource (trad. de R. D. Hicks, Loeb, 1925), 1925

    Translation: R. D. Hicks

    Dominio público (Hicks murió en 1929).

    View in store · Wikisource (gratuito)
  • Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume II: Books 6–10 (Loeb Classical Library 185) — Diogenes of Sinope

    Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume II: Books 6–10 (Loeb Classical Library 185)

    Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library), 1925

    Translation: R. D. Hicks

    ISBN 9780674992047

    Edición bilingüe griego-inglés; el ISBN corresponde a la reimpresión registrada en Open Library.

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Español

  • Los diez libros de Diógenes Laercio sobre las vidas, opiniones y sentencias de los filósofos más ilustres, tomo II

    Imprenta Real (ed. digital en Internet Archive), 1792

    Translation: José Ortiz y Sanz

    Dominio público.

    View in store · Internet Archive (gratuito)
  • La secta del perro. Diógenes Laercio: Vidas de los filósofos cínicos — Diogenes of Sinope

    La secta del perro. Diógenes Laercio: Vidas de los filósofos cínicos

    Alianza Editorial, 1987

    Translation: Carlos García Gual

    ISBN 9788420602509

    Traducción del libro VI de Diógenes Laercio con estudio sobre el cinismo.

  • Los filósofos cínicos y la literatura moral serioburlesca — Diogenes of Sinope

    Los filósofos cínicos y la literatura moral serioburlesca

    Akal (Clásica), 2008

    Translation: José Antonio Martín García (rev. Cristóbal Macías Villalobos)

    ISBN 9788446030119

    Dos volúmenes con la traducción de casi todos los testimonios cínicos; Open Library registra este ISBN sin indicar tomo y la ficha de una librería lo asocia al vol. II.

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Griego antiguo

  • Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae (ed. Gabriele Giannantoni), vol. II, sección V B

    Bibliopolis, 1990

    ISBN 9788870882155

    Edición crítica de referencia de los testimonios y fragmentos de Diógenes; el ISBN es el de la obra en Open Library.

Other works by Diogenes of Sinope

Sources

  • Diógenes Laercio. Vidas y opiniones de los filósofos ilustres, libro VI, 20–81 (Diógenes), 85–93 (Crates) y 104–105 (doctrina cínica), s. III d. C. Trad. inglesa de R. D. Hicks, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vol. II, Loeb Classical Library 185, Heinemann / Harvard University Press, 1925 (Wikisource en inglés); texto griego en Wikisource griega; trad. de C. D. Yonge, Bohn, Londres, 1853 (Project Gutenberg n.º 57342).

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